Everything You Learned In School Is A Lie
In a Nutshell
The video argues that schools often teach simplified or now-disproven facts first, then later introduce nuance, but warns against front-loading excessive criticism and existential threats to young children. It claims this approach undermines optimism and patriotism, which are essential for fostering agency and engagement. The recommended method is to teach the positive foundation of a country or system first, then add critical complexity later when children are older and more resilient.
These notes were generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
The Retro Codex is a website that teaches things learned in school that have since been disproven. Users can input their high school graduation year to see what information from their education is now outdated.
- Lightning never strikes the same place twice: Lightning has struck several places multiple times. The Empire State Building is struck approximately 25 times a year.
- Wearing red near a bull will cause it to charge: Bulls may not be able to distinguish the color red from other colors. What triggers the bull is movement and physical provocation, not color. The red cape is to conceal blood stains.
- Goldfish have a 3-second memory: Goldfish retain memories for weeks, months, and possibly years.
- George Washington had wooden teeth: He did wear dentures, but they were made of other materials such as tin, gold, and lead, and human teeth from enslaved individuals.
- You need to wait 20 to 30 minutes after you eat to swim or you'll get stomach cramps and drown: There's no clinical evidence for that.
- If you roll your eyes they'll get stuck: This is listed under folk wisdom.
- If you pee in the pool, everyone will know because it'll turn water green.
- Hot water washing hands is better than cold water: Water temperature has not been found to impact the antibacterial efficacy of hand washing.
- After a person dies, their hair or fingernails can keep growing.
- Brown sugar is healthier than white sugar.
- Pluto being a planet was true when attending high school in the 2000s.
The food pyramid has been turned literally upside down.
Schools traditionally teach the simple wrong story first to let the concepts sink in, then later build nuance. Examples include the Thanksgiving story of pilgrims and Indians having a nice feast, or Columbus discovering the new world. The basic story is allowed to seep in, and later the more complicated, nastier story is revealed.
Some argue that out of political reasons, schools are now front-loading the gnarly version to really young kids right away. This may be going too far in that direction.
American children should be taught first all the good things about America. They should learn that they're in a great country that has been complicated and not perfect but has done a lot of great things. Patriotism should be emphasized and children should be proud. Later, more nuance can be learned.
The approach is compared to not teaching your kid that their dad is a good person but actually cheated in his 20s or got fired. You start with the dad's great of course, and later in life when the kid is an adult, you start to say dad is not perfect and did certain things.
A friend with multiple kids who is very successful gave parenting advice that the first rule is to teach your kids to be optimists because action flows from optimism and agency flows from optimism. Creating a picture that you don't want to aspire to engage with seems antithetical to that.
Hammering second, third, and fourth graders with climate change and that their future is destroyed is questioned as a good idea. Older generations wonder why younger generations are so apathetic, but they're being waterboarded with existential threat all day.
The younger you are, the more neuroplastic you are. Statements can be quite reflexive. If you go on the news and say it's going to be a sunny day, there's no impact on whether it's going to be a sunny day. But if you go on the news and say there's going to be a bank run, you have an impact on whether there's going to be a bank run. If you go in thinking America's a terrible country, that's going to be quite a reflexive thing for your entire youth.
Britain is the most insecure in terms of internal reputation versus external reputation. If you travel anywhere else in the world apart from a few places, they often love the UK, but internally they often criticize themselves the most. A friend's sister came home and said Britain is the racist country on Earth, and he paused and said compared to what, and she couldn't answer.
It's the worst system apart from all of the other ones.
Jack Butcher's line states that unlearning is 100 times harder than learning. When laying down myelin sheets in kids who are 5, 6, or 7 years old, you're probably best starting off with generalized optimism and getting into specific pessimism or specific scrutiny as opposed to generalized scrutiny.
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