you might have learned it from a teacher
or a textbook but that doesn’t
necessarily make it true
welcome to watchmojo.com and today we’re
counting down our picks for the top ten
things you were misinformed about in
school I’m afraid you’ve been
misinformed
before we begin we publish new videos
every day
so be sure to subscribe for more great
content for this list we’re looking at
common lessons ideas and concepts most
of us learned in school which have later
been revealed to be less than accurate
if not downright false
these are adorably wrong number 10 the
sky is blue because of the ocean or vice
versa
why sky blue why trees are green yes the
age-old question why is the sky blue
according to outdated pop science you’re
often incorrect know-it-all uncle and a
very rudimentary science course you took
at school it’s because of the ocean and
the way it reflects the sky that might
be a nice simple answer but sadly it’s
incorrect nor is the opposite true you
see both get their lovely respective
blue hues from something called the
Raleigh’s scattering effect essentially
the molecular makeup of both makes it so
that short wavelengths of blue light
scatter better than the long wavelengths
such as red yellow and orange the end
result the sky and ocean looked blue
number 9 cursive matters it was it was
cursive writing all right all those
stupid squiggles and bumps just when you
finally became proficient with block
letters they went and threw this curve
ball at you yes cursive writing when
done well is beautiful but why do we
spend so much time on it and why did we
need to learn not one but two ways to
write by hand literacy and the low-tech
ability to express oneself in writing
are both essential skills but cursive
font bu and T imperfect cursive anymore
brain-busters it’s not like the average
person writes physical letters or pens
novels by hand anymore
most of
use it so infrequently it’s hard not to
feel that all those hours of practice
went to waste I don’t really even know
how to write cursive anymore
number eight Columbus discovered the
earth was round what was Christopher
Columbus actually looking for when he
discovered America
typically the history your Tod is gonna
be from the perspective of your own
country and it’s understandable however
such nations centric lessons can lead to
some unfortunate biases and less than
accurate lessons not only had the
rounder Theory been around for millennia
across various cultures it was also
widely accepted by many in Columbus his
own time the fact is Columbus never set
out to prove the earth was round and any
such notion received no mention until
the 19th century when Washington Irving
wrote Columbus’s biography by the early
20th century however this myth was
presented as fact did the Greeks knew it
was round he says choice’ knew it was
wrong
Roger Bacon wrote about the curvature of
the earth in the 13th century number
seven almost everything about
Thanksgiving and if we look in all the
journals and all the history books there
is no reference to stuffing before 1621
unfortunately the Thanksgiving narrative
we learn in school is essentially a work
of fiction accuracy is so time-consuming
fiction is the new fact the historic
first Thanksgiving took place only after
countless indigenous people had been
killed by European disease slavery was
also still in practice in Squanto the
Native American credited with teaching
the settlers to farm the land had
previously been enslaved only returning
home after escaping from his captors
based on the limited account of the
first Thanksgiving the Native people
showed up by chance and had to go and
get more food to join meanwhile in 1637
the first official day of Thanksgiving
was to celebrate the successful massacre
of some 700 Pequot number six the tongue
is made up of taste sections
remember those simplified color coded
Anatomy charts among them was most
likely this nifty little diagram which
Illustrated how certain areas of your
tongue were dedicated to each taste
amazing each flavor was totally unique
sadly the tongue map is utter nonsense
originating from a German paper written
by David P henyk and published in 1901
the theory which was then grossly
oversimplified into the now famous chart
was first presented to the world by
Edwin G boring in the 1940s the truth
the tongue is covered in thousands of
taste receptors allowing all five tastes
not for to register anywhere on the
tongue number five
marijuana is a gateway drug I am really
disturbed by the whole idea that whether
or not something is addictive is a
criteria for it being illegal in
America’s decades-long war on drugs
strategy has often been to treat them
with the utmost severity both in the
legal system and in the classroom from
the propaganda films of the 1930s
onwards to Nancy Reagan’s just say no
campaign beginning in the late 80s the
stance on drug education has seemingly
always been demonized first explain
never the issue of marijuana is still
debated today but at least as far as
schools taught it it is incorrect yes
most serious drug users smoked marijuana
first but the majority of marijuana
users never move on to harder substances
it’s a classic case of confusing
correlation with causality we’ve reached
a final conclusion on item nine number
four the I before E except after C rule
okay champ I before E except after C
except would pronounce like a as a
neighbor anyway really compared to many
other languages English is a
particularly challenging one to learn
why
well lack of clear rules due to the long
and complicated historical evolution of
the language English is overflowing with
half rules generalizations and more than
its fair share of exceptions and
seemingly odd spelling choices
you know man
the I before E except after C is simply
a mnemonic role to help students spell
words containing either an IE or e i the
problem is what good is a rule if it has
so many exceptions species policies
fancier financier we could go on all day
according to a certain British trivia
show there are 923 exceptions there are
923 which breaks up missing number three
you can’t start a sentence with the word
because because of what exactly because
I said so that’s why
kids looking to discredit their parents
responsive because I said so might wish
this particular grammar lesson held
water but unfortunately no such luck the
idea is that starting a phrase with
because can easily result in fragments
and when teaching students to write what
makes for a complete sentence can
sometimes be hard to convey
[Music]
it might not make for the prettiest
start to a sentence but as long as that
dependent clause is supported by an
independent one you are in the right
grammatically speaking because of this
common school lesson however most people
avoid it number two you can’t rely on
Wikipedia for information the Wikipedia
said he was passionate about rehearsal
don’t you worry about Wikipedia we’ll
change it when we get home we’ll change
a lot of things when Wikipedia first hit
the mainstream it seemingly became the
bane of most teachers existence to be
fair the concept is an admittedly
troubling one from a traditional
academic perspective traditionally its
rolled okay Wikipedia people with no
credentials can post information on a
subject and the only people editing or
verifying their information are other
users but over the years it’s grown and
evolved to the point where many people
now consider any Wikipedia page with
appropriate citations to be at least an
introductory Authority on any given
subject it still shouldn’t be used as a
source in research but it is undeniably
a great place to find information or
links to other legitimate sources before
we unveil our number one pick here are
some honorable mentions
I intend to crown myself and then why am
I here to bless my reign we’ve built the
Pyramid a long time ago to illustrate
how much people should eat of the four
basic food groups sir we abandon the
pyramid when Michelle Obama got involved
the pyramid doesn’t work we’ve already
tried it three long wasted years why
should the senator take so long to
recognize what the world is already
known number one they will prepare you
for college yet college sucks anyways
it’s all smart people and none of them
are as pretty as me as anyone who’s gone
to university or college will tell you
the transition from high school to
higher learning can be quite jarring and
for many undergrads the pressure proves
too much College is very fast-paced so
there’s more material covered according
to college Atlas based on 2014
statistics roughly 30% of University
students drop out after one year
high school up until graduation provides
a relatively regimented system of
structure and university by contrast
places all academic responsibilities
squarely at the feet of students
furthermore the nature of the work
drastically changes your hard work
advanced prep courses and high scores
often make little difference College is
simply a different beast do you agree
with our picks check out these other
great clips from WatchMojo and subscribe
for new videos every day
or a textbook but that doesn’t
necessarily make it true
welcome to watchmojo.com and today we’re
counting down our picks for the top ten
things you were misinformed about in
school I’m afraid you’ve been
misinformed
before we begin we publish new videos
every day
so be sure to subscribe for more great
content for this list we’re looking at
common lessons ideas and concepts most
of us learned in school which have later
been revealed to be less than accurate
if not downright false
these are adorably wrong number 10 the
sky is blue because of the ocean or vice
versa
why sky blue why trees are green yes the
age-old question why is the sky blue
according to outdated pop science you’re
often incorrect know-it-all uncle and a
very rudimentary science course you took
at school it’s because of the ocean and
the way it reflects the sky that might
be a nice simple answer but sadly it’s
incorrect nor is the opposite true you
see both get their lovely respective
blue hues from something called the
Raleigh’s scattering effect essentially
the molecular makeup of both makes it so
that short wavelengths of blue light
scatter better than the long wavelengths
such as red yellow and orange the end
result the sky and ocean looked blue
number 9 cursive matters it was it was
cursive writing all right all those
stupid squiggles and bumps just when you
finally became proficient with block
letters they went and threw this curve
ball at you yes cursive writing when
done well is beautiful but why do we
spend so much time on it and why did we
need to learn not one but two ways to
write by hand literacy and the low-tech
ability to express oneself in writing
are both essential skills but cursive
font bu and T imperfect cursive anymore
brain-busters it’s not like the average
person writes physical letters or pens
novels by hand anymore
most of
use it so infrequently it’s hard not to
feel that all those hours of practice
went to waste I don’t really even know
how to write cursive anymore
number eight Columbus discovered the
earth was round what was Christopher
Columbus actually looking for when he
discovered America
typically the history your Tod is gonna
be from the perspective of your own
country and it’s understandable however
such nations centric lessons can lead to
some unfortunate biases and less than
accurate lessons not only had the
rounder Theory been around for millennia
across various cultures it was also
widely accepted by many in Columbus his
own time the fact is Columbus never set
out to prove the earth was round and any
such notion received no mention until
the 19th century when Washington Irving
wrote Columbus’s biography by the early
20th century however this myth was
presented as fact did the Greeks knew it
was round he says choice’ knew it was
wrong
Roger Bacon wrote about the curvature of
the earth in the 13th century number
seven almost everything about
Thanksgiving and if we look in all the
journals and all the history books there
is no reference to stuffing before 1621
unfortunately the Thanksgiving narrative
we learn in school is essentially a work
of fiction accuracy is so time-consuming
fiction is the new fact the historic
first Thanksgiving took place only after
countless indigenous people had been
killed by European disease slavery was
also still in practice in Squanto the
Native American credited with teaching
the settlers to farm the land had
previously been enslaved only returning
home after escaping from his captors
based on the limited account of the
first Thanksgiving the Native people
showed up by chance and had to go and
get more food to join meanwhile in 1637
the first official day of Thanksgiving
was to celebrate the successful massacre
of some 700 Pequot number six the tongue
is made up of taste sections
remember those simplified color coded
Anatomy charts among them was most
likely this nifty little diagram which
Illustrated how certain areas of your
tongue were dedicated to each taste
amazing each flavor was totally unique
sadly the tongue map is utter nonsense
originating from a German paper written
by David P henyk and published in 1901
the theory which was then grossly
oversimplified into the now famous chart
was first presented to the world by
Edwin G boring in the 1940s the truth
the tongue is covered in thousands of
taste receptors allowing all five tastes
not for to register anywhere on the
tongue number five
marijuana is a gateway drug I am really
disturbed by the whole idea that whether
or not something is addictive is a
criteria for it being illegal in
America’s decades-long war on drugs
strategy has often been to treat them
with the utmost severity both in the
legal system and in the classroom from
the propaganda films of the 1930s
onwards to Nancy Reagan’s just say no
campaign beginning in the late 80s the
stance on drug education has seemingly
always been demonized first explain
never the issue of marijuana is still
debated today but at least as far as
schools taught it it is incorrect yes
most serious drug users smoked marijuana
first but the majority of marijuana
users never move on to harder substances
it’s a classic case of confusing
correlation with causality we’ve reached
a final conclusion on item nine number
four the I before E except after C rule
okay champ I before E except after C
except would pronounce like a as a
neighbor anyway really compared to many
other languages English is a
particularly challenging one to learn
why
well lack of clear rules due to the long
and complicated historical evolution of
the language English is overflowing with
half rules generalizations and more than
its fair share of exceptions and
seemingly odd spelling choices
you know man
the I before E except after C is simply
a mnemonic role to help students spell
words containing either an IE or e i the
problem is what good is a rule if it has
so many exceptions species policies
fancier financier we could go on all day
according to a certain British trivia
show there are 923 exceptions there are
923 which breaks up missing number three
you can’t start a sentence with the word
because because of what exactly because
I said so that’s why
kids looking to discredit their parents
responsive because I said so might wish
this particular grammar lesson held
water but unfortunately no such luck the
idea is that starting a phrase with
because can easily result in fragments
and when teaching students to write what
makes for a complete sentence can
sometimes be hard to convey
[Music]
it might not make for the prettiest
start to a sentence but as long as that
dependent clause is supported by an
independent one you are in the right
grammatically speaking because of this
common school lesson however most people
avoid it number two you can’t rely on
Wikipedia for information the Wikipedia
said he was passionate about rehearsal
don’t you worry about Wikipedia we’ll
change it when we get home we’ll change
a lot of things when Wikipedia first hit
the mainstream it seemingly became the
bane of most teachers existence to be
fair the concept is an admittedly
troubling one from a traditional
academic perspective traditionally its
rolled okay Wikipedia people with no
credentials can post information on a
subject and the only people editing or
verifying their information are other
users but over the years it’s grown and
evolved to the point where many people
now consider any Wikipedia page with
appropriate citations to be at least an
introductory Authority on any given
subject it still shouldn’t be used as a
source in research but it is undeniably
a great place to find information or
links to other legitimate sources before
we unveil our number one pick here are
some honorable mentions
I intend to crown myself and then why am
I here to bless my reign we’ve built the
Pyramid a long time ago to illustrate
how much people should eat of the four
basic food groups sir we abandon the
pyramid when Michelle Obama got involved
the pyramid doesn’t work we’ve already
tried it three long wasted years why
should the senator take so long to
recognize what the world is already
known number one they will prepare you
for college yet college sucks anyways
it’s all smart people and none of them
are as pretty as me as anyone who’s gone
to university or college will tell you
the transition from high school to
higher learning can be quite jarring and
for many undergrads the pressure proves
too much College is very fast-paced so
there’s more material covered according
to college Atlas based on 2014
statistics roughly 30% of University
students drop out after one year
high school up until graduation provides
a relatively regimented system of
structure and university by contrast
places all academic responsibilities
squarely at the feet of students
furthermore the nature of the work
drastically changes your hard work
advanced prep courses and high scores
often make little difference College is
simply a different beast do you agree
with our picks check out these other
great clips from WatchMojo and subscribe
for new videos every day
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