Sometimes school feels pointless, and sometimes it turns out it is. From dumbing down complex ideas, to pointless lessons to some teacher's that definitely have no business leading a classroom, people share the most
The 5 Senses
“The ‘5 Senses’ are a total myth. There’s also a sense of balance, time, hunger, and creeping dread you feel viscerally upon opening the Book of the Dead, Necronomicon.
Last I’ve heard, there’s over 20 of them.” (Source)
Can’t Believe She Said That
“My 7th grade health teacher: ‘Black people can’t swim. Their bones are much denser than ours. I’ve seen black kids jump into the pool, they just sink like rocks.’ Imagine my surprise upon moving away from Union, IN. (Source)
Cursive
“Cursive would be useful for anything other than signing my name.” (Source)
Chemistry Class
“Everything about chemistry. In grade 9 we were introduced to chemistry. Then in the later grades they were like, ‘Everything you were taught was essentially wrong, we did it to simplify things, here’s how it actually is.’ Then in university they go, “‘LOL everything you were taught in high school was wrong, it’s actually like this.’ Looking back, I wasn’t bad at chemistry, I always did well. But because of this constant flip-flopping I’m still confused about some of the basics, for example acids.” (Source)
“I’m Lactose Intolerant”
“That if you try hard, drink your milk, and stay in school, you can be a successful, middle-class citizen of the greatest GD country on earth. Turns out I’m lactose intolerant, thousands in debt from student loans, and hoping Pres. Trump doesn’t deport my family.” (Source)
Use A Compass
“In kindergarten, the teacher’s aid told us that north is always forwards no matter which direction you are facing. During recess, I figured out which way north really was and told her. Her response was, ‘Only if you are facing that way.'” (Source)
The Invasion Of The USA
“Middle School: the US has NEVER been invaded outside of Pearl Harbor. War of 1812, Britain used troops from Canada to enter the US, we surrendered Detroit. Later on British troops burned down the White House (remember the famous painting of George Washington? It was rescued from the fire by Dolly Madison). WW2, Aleutian Islands, ‘A small Japanese force occupied the islands of Attu and Kiska, but the remoteness of the islands and the difficulties of weather and terrain meant that it took nearly a year for a far larger US/Canadian force to eject them.’ There also has been reports of Nazi U-boats off the East coast, and Japanese balloon bombs in Washington state. I was in my early twenties when I started learning on my own about history.” (Source)
Body Temperature
“Our gym teacher told us your body temperature increases by 40 degrees when you run. When we pointed out you go to the hospital with a fever over 103, she told us it was different, and to stop acting smug.” (Source)
Wow
“My junior year of high school, one of my teachers told the class that you can only get STDs from ‘drug users and homosexuals.’ She also said that there are millions of baby angels in heaven looking for the right mommy and daddy to be born to. This was in 2012.” (Source)
The Vowel Story Part 1
“In kindergarten, my teacher read us out all the vowels because, somehow, that’s considered an important thing for children to know. She read them as such: ‘A, E, I, O, U, sometimes W, and sometimes Y.’ I bet you can guess which one of those f–ked up the rest of my entire life. I understood these vowels to be the complete and immutable list of vowels from then on. Why would I not? My teacher told me that’s what they are so that’s what they were. In first grade, my teacher asked the class, ‘Can anyone tell me which letters are vowels?’ Because, again, it is somehow important to adults that children know this weird, esoteric pseudo-fact. I shot my hand up with zeal and shout, ‘I do! They’re A, E, I, O, U, sometimes W, and sometimes Y.’ My teacher giggled a bit and said, ‘Haha, well no. W isn’t one of them.’ ‘But Mrs. Kindergarten said it was, Mrs. Firstgrade!’ ‘Here, take this to Mrs. Kindergarten.’ She handed me a note that said, ‘Is W a vowel? Mrs. Firstgrade.’
The Vowel Story Part 2
I walked over to my kindergarten teacher, gave her the note, watched her write something on it, and brought it back to my first grade teacher. She was absolutely livid. I got detention for a week. It turned out that the note just said, ‘Yes’ and that Mrs. Firstgrade thought that I forged it. I was destroyed. I had not gotten detention up until that point and I thought I did something bad. From that moment on, I decided to dedicate myself to learning everything I could about vowels. It turns out that my kindergarten teacher was more correct than my first grade teacher, but they were both wrong. Vowels aren’t really letters, but the sounds they represent. They need to be in every word because, in most western languages, you need to have some sort of vocalization behind most mouth sounds. Vocalizations, to drastically simplify a very complex discussion, are vowels and consonants are mouth sounds. If you are compelled to find out which vowel sounds correlate to which letters, the ‘always’ vowels are A, E, I, and O. U, W, and Y are all sometimes vowels. In “Quick,” “Wet,” and “Yellow,” they are consonants. In “Tube,” “Cwm,” and “Sketchy” they are vowels. (Source)
Citing Wikipedia
“‘Wikipedia is a terrible resource that is often inaccurate because literally anyone can instantly change literally any article.’ Wikipedia checks every edit within 24 hours, if I recall correctly, and they definitely screen new users somehow; I tried editing a small, backwater page once for s–ts and giggles and my edit never happened. More importantly, Wikipedia has stood up to every instance of cross-referencing that I’ve done, and I’ve written a decent number of research papers.” (Source)
Dream Interpretation
“I had a psychology class in high school where we did a whole unit on ‘dream interpretation’ — Jungian symbols and the metaphor of different events. Get to college and one psychology degree later I’ve been told about fifteen times that Jung was too high to find his toes and is barely more credible than Freud. Dream interpretation is basically useless.” (Source)
The Formation Of The Moon
“I knew it at the time, but my science teacher in 8th grade taught that the Big Bang Theory was the idea that the Moon was formed by a collision between Earth and a Mars-sized asteroid. I told her this was not the case, and her excuse was that it was simplified so that everyone could understand it better.” (Source)
The Tongue
“There are different sections of the tongue for salty, sweet, sour, and bitter taste buds.” (Source)
Red Baron
“That there wasn’t any air combat during WWI, because the planes were only used for scouting. W-what about Red Baron??” (Source)
Vomitoriums
“That the ancient Romans has places called vomitoriums where they would go and gorge themselves on food and then vomit to make room for more. Gross, right? Kind of like that one scene in Catching Fire. Vomitoriums were actually a sort of hallway designed for spectators to exit the coliseum and other arenas as efficiently as possible.”(Source)