Erroneous Facts from School

What was the most egregious factual error you were taught in school? I'm old and for me it would probably be that President Lincoln freed the slaves in the U.S. I had to grow up and read to learn that the number of slaves freed by President Lincoln in the U.S. was zero. But, then my children went to school and for them it's harder to pick. My son was taught the Holocaust never happened. When I complained I got a smarmy lecture on academic freedom. Both of my children were taught by the same English teacher that spelling, punctuation, grammar, and structure are all unimportant. All that's important is your ideas. I spoke with the principal and the teacher and neither denied that was being taught.

What were you taught that was erroneous? Do you think it's getting worse?

 

I'm sorry to hear that. Are you still allowing your children to be indoctrinated by crazy people?

 

oh. my. Gosh. have i got loads of stuff on this. EVEN into university where some affirmative action professor and i use the term loosely told the students that the english policy in Scotland of PrimaNocta was instituted by republicans. yes. This dum bass actually said that.

 

I was taught that the square on the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides, and that this knowledge would serve me well. I remember the theorem but in the subsequent 50 years of my life have never had occasion to make use of it. The bastards lied to me!

 

I had a biology teacher that made things up when he got insecure. Luckily, he looked dodgy when he did, so we double checked it and told him the next lecture. Then again, that was in our equivalent of high school.

 

We did a lot of home schooling correcting the nonsense. I emplained to my children that you can think of a chair without language bvut you cannot think of concepts such as honesty, decency, responsibility, or even love without words and language. If yuo can't use language well you can't think well. Then we had some examples of how poor choice of words, poor punctuation, poor spelling, and poor structure can totally change the point you're trying to make.

And, my children are 46-years old or so now. But, are you letting crazy people teach your children without any home schooling?

I am curious, Maximatic. Is there a city called Teotihuacan or do you live in an archeological site?

 

I've always suspected the concept of "lying" eluded you.

 

I told my son that you cannot see DNA strands because they are too small to be seen and he got in trouble with his biology teacher over that because she was teaching that the double helix could be seen. Also got in trouble about 5 years ago when my son's assignment was making a model of the planets of the Solar System and I told him to leave out Pluto because it's not a planet.

 

Funny. No, I don't live where Teotihuacan was. That's just a word under the heading "Location" on this PF profile. So far no crazy people have taught my only son, but he's only five, so we'll see how it goes.

 

Well this isnt an erroneous fact (because i agree with it) but if we're mocking teachers i might aswell say it.

In junior high i had a biology teacher who frequently mocked religion very openly. I didnt make much of it at the time because ive always been an atheist but now that i look back at it it was incredibly tacky. We had a few religious students in my class and im sure they had lively discussions with their parents after school.

 

Double dumb, since it never existed. He must have overdosed on Mel's gratuitously violent curious interpretation of history known as "Braveheart".

 

Well said

 

And I still yearn for that day...

 

The holocaust is a completely fabricated mythology, and you should consider yourself fortunate that a teacher in your child's school was brave enough to educate your child properly. In fact the state of Israel has openly declared on multiple occasions that the "holocaust" was indeed largely bloviated and was nothing more than a sympathy-getting propaganda tool used by the Zionist Imperialist element within their own (illegally founded) govt.

 

I am so old, Munqi, that I even had college professors who kept their political opinions to themselves. They moderated some lively arguements in the classes but they didn't feel they were there to indoctrinate. One professor, a Dr. Johns, might have slipped when he said, "I've been voting Democrat since I was 12 and expect to vote Democrat for 25 years after I die," but he might have been joking. We weren't sure.

I'm an atheist and have been since grammar school but I outgrew mocking religious people before I got out of college. Sadly, your biology teacher never outgrew it. Now I just mock liberals in self-defense.

 

If I vaguely remember, one of my brother's middle school social studies teacher would teach her students that Alaska is a continent. By the end of that school year, she would have no job.

 

What are you talking about, the number of slaves Lincoln actually unshackled with a skeleton key? But you are quite right, the Union Army (particularly Sherman) freed the slaves, not Lincoln.

The most erroneous thing I was taught in school (and this was in college) was that there was never a link between Judaism and Bolshevism. This was more an error of blatant omission. And I was taught that the Japanese started WWII by bombing Pearl Harbor when we had actually been fighting the Nips in IndoChina for many years before Pearl Harbor.

 

That sounds an awful lot like some form of critical thinking! Thank God someone taught you that in school.

 

The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, merely declaring slaves to be free, would only apply to those within the Confederacy. The Union Army would have to act upon this through the likes of its military strategies.

 

I was teached that there are 3 quantic numbers that describe electron activity in atoms.
P number, S number and D number and spin number wich is not a real number.
I was teached a lot of things on them and i never understood why I had to learn about this.

 

See below. Malfunction.

 

You "were teached," eh?

 

A few points regarding this discussion. First (if we are discussing U.S. public education, but probably most other systems, as well), it is important to distinguish between postsecondary and K-12 schools. Colleges and university professors have more academic freedom than K-12 teachers for some obvious reasons.

Second, HIS-STORY is open to debate, and there will always be those who disagree. In recent years I've noticed that history teachers in K-12 schools are hesitant to stray from the curriculum, so if they are "misinforming" students it is likely they are doing it based on a textbook or school board decision.

As for whether any detail like finding the hypotenuse is relevant, you never know. The only time I've used that fact was taking the SAT and GRE. Still, I used it.

Also, NCLB has created an environment in K-12 schools where basic skills like math, grammar, punctuation, etc., are not only important to the teachers and school administrators, but in some schools the pressure to raise test scores has created a system that teaches little else. Remember, most states test reading, writing, math, and maybe science. Many states do not test social studies because people cannot agree on fact vs. opinion regarding everything from Manifest Destiny to the Holocaust to whether or not Reagan raised taxes or ballooned the debt.

Lastly, and this comes from a confessed educator of 25 years, and to paraphrase from something I read by Thomas Sowell, education doesn't exactly attract our best and brightest (again, in the U.S.). Studies regarding grades and test scores of those entering the field show this, and one could argue whether grades and test scores really matter. Still, given the hostility toward teachers in recent decades, one would have to be stupid or crazy - or a martyr - to choose to be a teacher. It's a hostile environment in most districts in most states. In my district, and this is no lie, we are lucky to get ANY applicants, much less quality ones. The poor economy is helping schools fill positions because people need jobs, and despite the perception among many that teachers have it easy, what with "months off" and "awesome" benefits and pensions, our district has been unable to attract effective teachers (for math and special education, in particular).

So sure, we've all experienced dumb-ass teachers. One I had in high school (happened to be a math teacher) once told me if I didn't like his class I could leave. I did, but went back when I decided I could use the credit. A few weeks later he was once again complaining about his lousy pay and sick kid and poor health insurance, so I told him if he didn't like his job he could leave. He kicked me out, instead. Too bad for the students. I never went back and failed the class. My only F in high school. Did that F matter? Hell, no. I got into CU and did better in college, maybe because I so enjoyed those professors who had more academic freedom - especially that political science teacher who was an anarchist. To be fair, he only lasted one semester before they canned him - but I learned an awful lot from a guy who equally despised capitalism and communism!

 

I've taught with some brilliant teachers, and I've taught with some incredibly idiotic teachers. When you say, "The profession doesn't attract the best and brightest," I'd say you're wrong; it doesn't attract ONLY the best and brightest, or ALL OF the best and brightest. It's an important distinction. Many brilliant people ARE called to education, whether people like Patrick want to believe it or not. However, you're right in that these individuals will start drifting towards other professions even if they feel drawn to teaching because of the absolute s*** that the general public gives teachers on a daily basis.

 

Once upon a time, I wanted to be a teacher. Did my student teaching and everything. Then some moron righty pundit with an axe to grind said something like "education doesn't exactly attract our best and brightest" so I moved on (that, actually, was just one of the reasons). It's hard to do that job with the public unanimous in their thinking that you are a dummy and don't deserve ALL that money you're making.

Same deal with a friend. Razor sharp teacher, loved by her students. She quit, went to law school, and is now a federal judge.

Why the hell put up with that stuff? Let their kids bag groceries if that's what the parents want.