Stupid things they now teach in schools.

[protege]

If it was a mistake, I can buy it as we have a Republican government. If it wasn't a mistake, then how the hell did that make it past the editors?

Simple. It's in there, because it's *trendy* to bash the Republican party for anything and everything "wrong" or "bad" that has happened in the world or even the US

[s_stabeler]

Simple. It's in there, because it's *trendy* to bash the Republican party for anything and everything "wrong" or "bad" that has happened in the world or even the US

to be fair, it isn't exactly difficult. Not to mention, of the two parties, the Republicans keep championing measures that would make the problem worse. (tax cuts for the rich while raising spending, for example)

[Andara Bledin]

Considering the "facts" that you can find in so many textbooks...

Including that the Statue of Liberty is made of bronze. >_>

[HYHYBT]

Somewhere, for some reason, I still have my 8th grade math and 10th grade history textbooks. Now I'm going to have to dig them up and read them to see if anything stands out as obviously wrong. (I may not remember enough algebra to know, but world history should be easy enough.)

[KabeRinnaul]

Somewhere, for some reason, I still have my 8th grade math and 10th grade history textbooks. Now I'm going to have to dig them up and read them to see if anything stands out as obviously wrong. (I may not remember enough algebra to know, but world history should be easy enough.)

My mom still has a set of the World Book Encyclopedia from the early 70s on a bookshelf in her house. The entry for Mars explains that the dark regions on its surface were originally thought to be seas, but modern astronomers now believe them to be vegetation.

I also have a handful of my dad's old college textbooks. I should pull out the science book and see if they're anything entertainingly wrong in there.

[mathnerd]

Somewhere, for some reason, I still have my 8th grade math and 10th grade history textbooks. Now I'm going to have to dig them up and read them to see if anything stands out as obviously wrong. (I may not remember enough algebra to know, but world history should be easy enough.)

The algebra itself should not be wrong, barring any typos (and those do happen). What's fun about reading old math books is reading the word problems, since a good textbook writer* tries to make the world problems relevant to to the students' lives.

*In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that I occasionally freelance for a couple different textbook companies, writing....you guessed it....word problems (in addition to some other stuff). I'm probably a bit on the abnormal side in considering reading the old problems as "fun".

[Andara Bledin]

I'm probably a bit on the abnormal side in considering reading the old problems as "fun".

As someone who has over 300 hours spent playing a math logic game on my computer... I'm right there with you.

[wolfie]

My mother was a science teacher. When I was in elementary school, I found an error in one of her (forget the exact year) grade 8 or 9 text books. I was on a dinosaur "kick" at the time, and the caption on a photo of a triceratops skeleton identified it as a brontosaurus.

Incidentally, if you look at current texts, they won't mention brontosaurus at all. It seems that (independent discovery) the same critter had already been found by another scientist and named "apatasaurus" - and the earlier name takes precedence.

[Gravekeeper]

Simple. It's in there, because it's *trendy* to bash the Republican party for anything and everything "wrong" or "bad" that has happened in the world or even the US

In fairness they are generally responsible for most of the worst ones in the last 2 decades or so. Also, in fairness, trendy would imply it t be a recent, temporary thing. >.>

That said, saying the Constitution was written to favour the Republican party is completely absurd on every level. The GOP in its current aggravating form is a fairly new creature on the political landscape.

My mom still has a set of the World Book Encyclopedia from the early 70s on a bookshelf in her house. The entry for Mars explains that the dark regions on its surface were originally thought to be seas, but modern astronomers now believe them to be vegetation.

One of my favourite books as a kid was an atlas of the solar system. It was a huge book with huge ass awesome pictures of the planets. But it was my mom's book before I was born. So to say it was hilariously wrong by the time I hit high school would be an understatement.

My school textbooks have held up fairly well though. They tended to get revised when needed on a decent basis. But what does and does not go in our textbooks up here isn't badly driven by politics like down there. So we don't get weird revisionist history stuff like that.

[wolfie]

Ine of my favourite books as a kid was an atlas of the solar system. It was a huge book with huge ass awesome pictures of the planets. But it was my mom's book before I was born. So to say it was hilariously wrong by the time I hit high school would be an understatement.

When I was attending Sherlock Holmes' alma mater (what school was that? Elementary, my dear Watson), we had an annual field trip to the Planetarium. Every year, the presenter would ask the class how many moons Jupiter had. Every year, we'd get it wrong. Why would we get it wrong? Because that was around the time when scientists were discovering at least one new Jovian moon every year.

[lordlundar]

When I was attending Sherlock Holmes' alma mater (what school was that? Elementary, my dear Watson)

*smacks wolfie upside the head*

You deserved that.

[fireheart17]

The ONLY other reason I can think of for the "2+1 show your working out" bit is that she's trying to teach them to subbitize and failing HARD. (Subitizng=you can see how many there are at a glance rather than counting them out individually, or seeing them in groups of. For example, playing Yahtzee and counting up the rolls)

Some of the stuff at the Waldorf school I spent time at had me going "WTF" internally, although out of respect for the school (and the fact that I just had a sucky teacher, but LOVED the methodology when you took the anthroposophical crap out of it) I didn't say anything. Among the things I was going "wtf" at:

-The kids learning about the "four elements" in Class 1. (fire, air, water, earth) and being taught this as actual science.
-The elements having "conversations" with each other in Class 2/3. (For instance, a beach would have "conversations" between the sky and sun, sun and sea and so on and whatever came out of it would be the result of that conversation ie sand coming from the sea and rocks)

-While I find this cute, at the time, I found the naming of the colours a bit "wtf" when Class 1 were doing some wet-on-wet painting. (I LOVE the idea behind it though-the kids discover colours through the paints blending on the paper rather than blending the paint together)

-Class 3 learning about the Bible stories as fact. The Waldorf system markets itself as NOT being religious, but I still found this a little odd. On the plus side, they DID actually teach the kids the story from the Hebrew perspective rather than the "Christian" perspective. (the teacher used "yahweh" when referring to God and so on and was telling the kids the story of passover) To be fair, Hinduism is covered in Class 5 and the birth of Christ is covered in Class 6 (more to do with the fall of Rome aspect)

-The use of "Gnomes" in the technology. >.<

-The addressing of "special needs" was a little odd. While they did engage with various services when needed, some of the kids were put through a program that seemed to "correct" various habits that most people would mark off as either an ADHD symptom, develpmentally normal or disruptive in general. The program itself wasn't too weird though-it would be stuff used in gross motor programs.

[Rubystars]

I'm 35 years old and this still bothers me sometimes to this day.

When I was in 2nd grade, the teacher was trying to teach us which types of animals laid eggs and which types of animals gave live birth. First, she told us that mammals gave live birth and everything else like birds and reptiles and fish laid eggs. This is wrong as some few mammals do lay eggs (the monotremes) and some reptiles and fish give live birth.

I suppose that would have gotten it right for us most of the time though if that was the only error. However what really sticks in my mind and bothers me about this is what happened next.

She asked us to go home and cut out pictures of animals from newspapers, magazines, etc. and bring them to class. On one side of the chalk board was a panel labeled eggs and on the other side was a panel for the animals that gave live birth. I brought out a cut out picture of a squirrel, which I knew gave live birth and didn't lay eggs.

Rather than having us put our own pictures on the appropriate side, which I think should have been done, we were supposed to put all the pictures in a pile and then take turns picking a picture out and putting it on its side.

This boy picked up my squirrel and put it on the eggs side of the board. The teacher told him that he was right and he sat back down. I got really upset about this. I told the teacher later that I didn't want that on that side because I knew it was wrong and that squirrels didn't lay eggs. She told me that I wasn't allowed to move it and I was wrong.

I guess she thought because squirrels live in trees they must be birds.

[fireheart17]

I can go one better on the "Stupid things" department, albeit school-related.

Background!

Down here, it's very rare for a school to NOT have a uniform. For a government school, this is typically a polo shirt and shorts/skirt in summer, polo shirt + jumper and pants (or skirt) in winter, plus sneakers and/or black leather lace-up shoes. For a private school, this is obviously a bit more formal. The schools that typically do NOT have uniforms are pre-university schools (because they treat the students as university students), Waldorf/Steiner schools, some Montessori schools and some "progressive education" schools.

end background

Around 2-3 years ago, my high school merged with the nearby primary school. as a result, a new uniform was introduced. Now, for a public school, some of the costs of said uniform items were VERY prohibitive...for instance, a $60 jacket. For the primary students.

This resulted in a number of students who came from not-so-well-off backgrounds being punished...for not wearing the jacket. Now, MOST schools are flexible with the uniform policy: if you send your kid to school wearing the right colour shirt but it doesn't have the logo on it, kid is not going to get punished. If you send your kid to school wearing a bright purple shirt that says "I'm a hooker" on it however, you're in trouble.
In this case, the students couldn't afford the jacket, were making do with stuff that was in the correct colour but not otherwise "school" worthy and their kids were being sent to play in the "non uniform" area....out of sight from the front of the school. There were also threats about students not being allowed to go on excursions or CAMPS because they weren't wearing the uniform.

A little followup from a number of parents resulted in the school clarifying its position on the "non uniform" area and some heads rolled with the staff. Turns out that the teachers had gotten the wrong idea about who was actually meant to go in the non-uniform area and had been punishing students who couldn't do anything about their living situation. The non-uniform area was for the parents who CHOSE to send their kid to school in incorrect uniform, or if the child decided to wear whatever he/she felt like. The kids who were wearing the right colours but not the "official" school stuff? Not to be penalised.

I just gave a mental facepalm at that.

Some private schools have stupid rules about their uniform being worn OUTSIDE of the school....which to me, makes me wonder how the hell they enforce it. Two of the more specific rules relate to students wearing blazers when they arrive/leave and wearing hats when they arrive/leave. Once they're out of school sight, how the hell are they going to get wind of that rule? It just seems a little bit silly.

[s_stabeler]

a) the idea is that most students won't bother to take off their blazer once they are out of sight of the school
b) it provides an opportunity to easily check if someone is in uniform or not- station a teacher at the entrance of the school, and anyone w/o a blazer on gets in trouble for being out of uniform

I will say that any rule which requires the uniform being worn anywhere except for at school or traveling to/from school is a rule I would ignore as stupid.