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Not recently, but when I was in High School, we were taught that Shakespeare's plays weren't written down until later. They were cobbled together from people who could remember the lines and wrote them down later.
When I went to college I learned a) not even remotely true and b) High School is basically bullshit to keep you busy until you go to college.
I hear people say the phrase “it’s high school biology” a lot. Yeah, high school biology is simplified to the point of being just plain wrong.
I remember doing really well in high school chemistry. I learned all about the electrons orbiting the nucleous. I take chemistry in university and am immediately told that's an outdated model from the 1900s nobody uses. Why the fuck did I study it then? Because quantum physics is complicated? So you just teach the wrong thing because the actual truth is complicated?? It's really no wonder people have no scientific literacy when high schools explain how the world works like nobody has discovered anything new since 1913.
There's a Pratchett quote that I always think about in this context, about "lies to children"
As humans, we have invented lots of useful kinds of lie. As well as lies-to-children ('as much as they can understand') there are lies-to-bosses ('as much as they need to know') lies-to-patients ('they won't worry about what they don't know') and, for all sorts of reasons, lies-to-ourselves.
Lies-to-children is simply a prevalent and necessary kind of lie. Universities are very familiar with bright, qualified school-leavers who arrive and then go into shock on finding that biology or physics isn't quite what they've been taught so far. 'Yes, but you needed to understand that,' they are told, 'so that now we can tell you why it isn't exactly true.'
Discworld teachers know this, and use it to demonstrate why universities are truly storehouses of knowledge: students arrive from school confident that they know very nearly everything, and they leave years later certain that they know practically nothing. Where did the knowledge go in the meantime? Into the university, of course, where it is carefully dried and stored.
I could've cut that down more, but I like that whole chunk. I think there is a usefulness in the lies to children approach, if done well. As you highlight though, it can be frustrating when the simplified thing that's being taught isn't just simplified, but straight up wrong.
It's not just high school. That's just how chemistry is taught because it's extremely complex and requires many simplifications to be able to teach it to a lay person in any meaningful capacity. Good instructors will mention these simplifications, but it's likely your current understanding of certain things (especially organic compounds) is also overly simplified. It's unfortunately the only way to teach it.
I sheepishly left a class on Shakespeare I signed up for in college because it became immediately apparent that my high school classes on the same subject did not actually prepare me for the next level and I felt like a complete fucking idiot just listening to the lecture.
Probably a jumbled up recollection of the pirated plays people would scribble down to sell to printers or to competing theatre companies.
The First Folio and other "good" sources were probably not directly from Shakespeare's drafts either, but from revised working scripts that the King's Men had around. Still a vast jump from there to "weren't written down until later."
In general, there's a lot of needless mystery and "bardolatry" surrounding Shakespeare, when in fact he was reasonably well documented for a commoner, has had every single scrap of evidence for his life and career scoured over a dozen times, had works of uneven quality, and most of what's unique about him jibes perfectly well with a half-educated prodigy coming in from the country and working in a milieu that was kind of edgy and open to experimentation.
Maybe the thought was that even Shakespeare took themes and plots from earlier work and even from stories that come from oral traditions?
I used to believe that common sense existed. You know, the usual stuff, like water is hot and fire is wet...
But then it occurred to me a few years ago, that what people believe to be 'common sense' are actually the things that nobody bothers to teach the next generation.
Meaning that common sense is only as common as one's elders teach you. So when the elders assume that you automatically know certain things, they won't bother teaching you.
Hence, common sense does not exist.
One of the most difficult things to learn about past societies is how the average person lived, because nobody would actually write that down.
It's happening again too. Gen X, boomers, and late millennials grew up thinking the young had a natural talent for computers, so they cut funding to typing and computer classes. Turns out we (the older tech talented folks) grew up with tech and were taught along the way with how to type and how to use computers.
Kids however are growing up on ipads, with UIs specifically designed to be easy to use. They're going into college not knowing how to type, how to make a PowerPoint, or even how to navigate a directory structure. Everyone assumed it was now common knowledge and it's setting them up for failure
So true. I do a bit of teaching and kids have recently lost all computer skills I thought was basic.
"Where's my work gone?"
"Where did you save it?"
"What do you mean?"
"At the end of last lesson, show me exactly what you did"
"I clicked the X here, then clicked ok"
He clicked OK to the "do you want to close this document without saving?" box. He is 19. I had to give a really detailed lesson on how to save something to not only him, but half the students I taught this year.
Ah yes, not reading the dialog box and getting upset when it does exactly what it said it would do.
An idea that transcends across generations.
Maybe being bombarded with cookie banners and bullshit popups teaches you to ignore dialog boxes.
Yes, that certently doesn't help, but this was a problem 30 years ago too.
Maybe we need dialog boxes to ocassionally ask to do stupid shit so people start reading them
Now you have to read.
I did IT support at one point, when they have an issue but don't know what the box said you know you're having a bad time!
Would you say that common sense changes with the generations? What was once common is no longer, and what was uncommon becomes common?
Once upon a time, it was considered common sense to tie your shoes. Then Velcro came along...
Wait, you weren't born knowing how to tie your shoes?
Mosquito hawks don't eat mosquitos or larvae or do anything against mosquitos.
It always seemed odd since they fly like they're drunk but I figured mosquitos aren't much stronger fliers so maybe they're just 'good enough' to catch mosquitos. Nope- it's just a dumb name for a crane fly. I always gave them room even when they bothered me because I figured they're doing good work eating the enemy, but now I know they're not allies I swat them like any other pest.
I always thought peanuts were nuts and grew on trees. Oh how utterly, devastatingly naive I've been...
It's devastating that a PBJ and is a bean sandwich.
You are a bean sandwich!
Yeah, I mean can you imagine what squirrels would do to peanut trees? They’d mess them up. Squirrels are basically tiny chimpanzees.
I used to believe narwhals were a fake internet cryptid, but no, real ass aquatic mammal.
I was always told that the reason you used to see an Olive Garden next to every Red Lobster is because a husband/wife couple owned both chains and wanted the restaurants placed next to each other. Then a decade ago when they kinda stopped doing that it was because they divorced.
I can’t find a single piece of evidence that supports this claim online. The two restaurants were just owned by the same parent company and Red Lobster got sold off in 2014.
They're franchised so that could have been true for the town or region you were in 🤷♂️
Huh, I always assumed it was just because they target the exact same people. The only differentiator is pasta or seafood, in my mind.
Oh there's a lot.
There's a lot more than this, probably I'll update this comment in the future. Or not.
I love how this comment covers super common misconceptions, but then throws a super specific database issue in at the end. Gotta have that cascade on delete, unless you want orphans.
Parents used to teach, if you read in the dark (on paper, not on a screen, I must add), you’re ruining your eyes. But if you think about it: wtf does low light do to your eyes? By that logic, you’re constantly ruining your eyes while sleeping.
The theory is that frequently straining your eyes is an issue, so reading in conditions that are difficult to see in will weaken them, not that dark itself hurts your eyes.
When I was a kid, parents and teachers used to teach, if you have sore muscles a day after an extensive workout, you need to work out even more in order to reduce the soreness. In fact, however, you need to rest those muscles.
Strained muscles need rest but when starting a new workout routine it's common to experience Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) the next day which you can relieve with light exercise.
Pepperoni (double p) is a type of salami in my view, but TIL that peperoni (single p) are a type of sweet pepper. I knew that peperoncini are a type of hot pepper.
how about actual italians don't know what the fuck pepperoni is. they have pizza salami, but that weird red sausage is not something you'll find in Italy
That vapes cause popcorn lung. Only specific vape juice that isn't sold anymore or hard cbd oil in a vape caused popcorn lung.
That isn't to say vaping is good for you. It just doesn't cause popcorn lung
Small correction: Vape juice ingredient, Diacetyl. It was in many different flavor components, and a juice can have five, six, eight components. It’s mostly in cream, custard, and butter flavors.
Source: Ecig juice maker for a decade
Additionally, the whole popcorn lung scare was fear mongering at its best. Popcorn lung is called that because people who worked in popcorn factories used to get it after years of breathing in diacetyl for 40+ hours a week which was an ingredient used in the butter flavoring for popcorn. On top of that, traditional cigarettes contain diacetyl as well, at way higher levels than e cigarettes ever did, but you never heard of a smoker getting popcorn lung.
I'm not saying that vaping is harmless, it certainly is too early to know if there are any long term effects, but as of right now the only negative impact they can truthfully say is that e cigarettes cause anxiety as if anxiety among the general public isn't at an all time high anyway.
There was a huge smear campaign against a potential life saving device because big tobacco started losing boat loads of money. Pretty fucked.
I used to believe business could claim tax breaks for the money we contribute when they ask "Do you want to donate to XYZ cause?"
I learned today about how businesses can't actually claim point-of-sale charitable donations that show on a receipt for a tax write-off. Also, I learned about how no one can claim tax write-off for cash donations into a charity jar.
NaN == NaN
Not every Corner Bakery is, in fact, located at a corner
That I was the only idiot around. My, how wrong I was!
Allowing a Pokémon to evolve earlier results in a stronger 'mon at the end.
I thought that was to balance the faster level gain and learning of moves, but no. The only consideration to letting a Pokémon evolve is "will it learn the move I want". I was corrected yesterday.
