Between Pluto’s demotion from planet and the abunance of media hand-wringing over the state of America’s eating habits, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about information I learned in school that’s now considered false, inaccurate or outdated. I’m curious to see how much has changed over the years.
For some background, I attended K through 12 between 1985 and 1998.
The old four-squares model of the food groups became a pyramid. During the earliest nutrition lessons that I can remember, ice cream was included in the dairy group.
Geography became more complicated after elementary school, with the breakup of the USSR.
The DARE officer devoted a lot of time to making sure we knew how to tell off a pushy drug dealer who keeps offering you drugs, the likes of whom no one I know has ever encountered.
Apparently my middle school, in one of the best-funded districts in the U.S., didn’t have enough money to buy new science films; we were still watching some of the ones my mom had watched when she was in school. Does anyone else remember Hemo the Magnificent?
(I was in middle school from 1979 - 1982. Maybe our science teacher was just showing it for the cheese factor, but I doubt it.)
I remember that film! I actually liked it, the first time I ever saw film of a heart working. I graduated high school in 1973, so I would have been in grade school until 1967, and I’m sure that’s where I saw it.
Canada has ten provinces and 2 territories. Not that that’s changed much, but I can never remember how to spell Iqaluit.
I’m sure things would get worse if I’d learned much international geography, but my knowledge there has always been hazy at best. Hurray for small rural schools (On the other hand, my sex-ed curriculum was pretty good)
Hey! Hemo was cool! The linking of sea water to blood is something I recall to this day. It even impressed my hematology attending back in med school when I told him that blood was just specialized sea water!
I didn’t know “Hemo the Magnificent” was directed by Frank Capra! That explains a lot.
I remember learning about the food pyramid in grade school, but it was a more horizontal pyramid than the one used today. See here I remember the old one in the picture.
A lot of the dinosaur stuff seems to have changed too. I miss the brontosaurus.
I graduated in 1999.
[ul]
[li]Never, under any circumstances, even if hell freezes over, will an adult brain regenerate neurons.[/li][li]When you have your own household, you will write or receive checks.[/li][li]BASIC with optional line numbers exists but shouldn’t be taken seriously.[/li][li]Forget BASIC, prepare for the future, learn Turbo Pascal![/li][li]My younger brothers already learned a different style of cursive writing.[/li][/ul]
Either I’m misreading this or missing the joke or something, but it’s actually 10 provinces and 3 territories. If it was still 2 territories, then you wouldn’t need to know how to spell Iqaluit!
I can’t really think of anything else. I am reminded of a slightly unrelated story my mom likes to tell about her grade 1 class a few years ago (actually, I expect it happens every year!)
When learning their shapes, the math book they use has useful pictures of things of that shape, such as balls and globes and oranges for “circle”. Another of the pictures is quite obviously intended to be a “record” but kids always call out “It’s a CD!”
Dangit, I was going to post “There are 9 planets,” but the OP beat me to it!
Neurons never ever form after birth.
Fat is bad for you, period, and you should avoid it at all costs.
The English system of measurement (feet, pounds, etc.) is useful. (Used it entirely too much in Calc, especially for work problems, which we did in physics with metric units; much easier with meters and kilograms)
Anything Caesar wrote could ever be interesting in its own right. (Does anyone ever read De Bello Gallico who isn’t studying that sort of thing?)
No guys ever wear any jewelry but a watch (in every video I ever saw in Bio, Health, etc.)
I just worded it kind of badly. When I was learning Canadian geography Nunavut hadn’t been formed yet, so I was taught that Canada only had two territories.
When I was a freshman in high school, we walked into our Government and Economics class one day, and were startled to see our teacher looking pale and shaken. We asked him what was wrong and he said “You’ve probably heard the news, but I’m shellshocked because I’ll never have to correct students again who say ‘Russia’ instead of ‘the USSR’. The USSR is gone, and you kids are finally right.”
When I was in elementary school we learned of prehistoric creatures called brontosauruses.
Off the top of my head:
[ul]
[li]No woman has ever served on the Supreme Court.[/li][li]Andrew Johnson was the only president to have been impeached.[/li][li]Fermat’s Last Theorem has not been proved.[/li][li]Ditto for the Four Color Theorem.[/li][li]Ditto for Poincare’s Conjecture (hot off the presses)[/li][/ul]
China’s potential as an international economic power is severely inhibited by internal politics.
How to record onto a multitrack cassette player.
A whole Spanish lesson, I kid you not, just learning what the pesata coins we would encounter looked like.
On the other hand, I did get a science teacher ten years ahead of his time, who told us the only reason to learn there were nine planets was because this was what the exam board wanted to hear.
Vietnam is a just war.
Good penmanship is essential.
Marihuana (sic) makes you hallucinate and then jump out a window and kill yourself.
Pluto is outside Neptune’s orbit.
Dinosaurs had cold blood.
America is a melting pot.
Everyone loves Americans.
You’ll need to know how to file a 1040 as a married person.
Oh, yeah. Great film! Saw it sometime before 1969.
(On the other hand, my sex-ed curriculum was pretty good)
