Everything You Learned In School Is A Lie

CChris Williamson
ParentingAdult EducationMental Health

Transcript

00:00:00have you seen the retro codex really really cool website so it's a website that teaches you things
00:00:06that you learned in school that are now disproven so you can go in and look at what year you
00:00:12graduated high school and it'll tell you what you learned in school and have now been disproven
00:00:18jared can you pull this up for me so um i put this in as 2000s which would be for me and george
00:00:24uh lightning never strikes the same place twice uh lightning has struck several places multiple
00:00:28times empire state building is struck approximately 25 times a year uh wearing red near a bull will
00:00:34cause it to charge bulls may not be able to distinguish the color red from other colors
00:00:37what triggers the bull is movement and physical provocation not color the red cape is to conceal
00:00:42blood stains uh goldfish have a three second memory goldfish retain memories for weeks months and
00:00:47possibly years george washington had wooden teeth he did wear dentures but they were made of other
00:00:51materials such as tin gold and lead human teeth from enslaved individuals it's a bit gnarly
00:00:56need to wait 20 to 30 minutes after you eat to swim or you'll get stomach cramps and drown there's no
00:01:01clinical evidence for that there's another one go a bit further down oh i see oh if you roll your
00:01:05eyes and folk wisdom checked on the top left i was like i don't recall getting uh if you roll your
00:01:12eyes if you pee in the pool everyone will know because it'll turn water green hot water washing
00:01:16hands is not good in cold water yeah right there interesting i'm learning a few things water temperature
00:01:21has not been found to impact the antibacterial efficacy of hand washing i didn't even know that
00:01:26after a person dies their hair or fingernails can keep growing who who who thinks earth is the only
00:01:32planet with water i don't know i don't know about that but in the 2000s might you have thought that
00:01:36because pluto being a planet would have been true when we went to high school yeah yeah yeah true
00:01:40brown sugar is healthier than white sugar yeah i just thought it's it's nice to find then obviously
00:01:45all of this stuff with the food pyramid that's got turned literally upside down so some of these will
00:01:50end up being overturned too but yeah um oh for sure i think when i was thinking about you know the way
00:01:55kids are educated i think that schools do something that i think in some cases it likes they at least
00:02:00they traditionally that is that is maybe the right thing to do which is you teach the wrong story
00:02:04the simple wrong story first just to like let the concepts and then later you start to build the
00:02:11nuance and you realize that but that's kind of like like thanksgiving i think it's i i think it's i
00:02:16learned early on that thanksgiving was this like wonderful thing and the pilgrims came and the
00:02:20the indians at the time the indians were like and everyone was happy and they had this nice feast
00:02:25and uh or you know just like columbus discovered the new world but like no he didn't but like and just
00:02:31like keep it um let let the basic story sink seep in and then later you can be like actually like
00:02:36this is like an allegory kind of for uh that that represents like a much larger more complicated much
00:02:42nastier story often and i think sometimes right now what they're doing is they're you know out of kind
00:02:47of i don't know you know kind of political reasons or whatever they're they're teaching kind of very
00:02:52very like you know um kind of a hardcore first story to really young kids right away that um
00:02:59but they're front loading the nollie version yeah exactly and maybe going too far even in that
00:03:03direction um when uh like i think i mean this is a whole other can of worms but i think that maybe i
00:03:10want to put the disguise but like i i know i think that um
00:03:16i do think american children should be taught first all these good great things about america
00:03:21they should learn that they're in this great country that's has complicated that has not been perfect but
00:03:25they've done a lot of great things um and it's this wonderful thing and patriotism and be really proud
00:03:30and then later later then you can learn a lot more nuance or it's the same reason that i think you
00:03:35shouldn't be teaching your kid you know that like you think your dad's a good person but actually you
00:03:39know he cheated when in his 20s like you know that he like did you know he got fired like you
00:03:44don't do that you start with that that's great of course then later in life and the kid's an adult
00:03:47you start i don't know this is partisan controversy anymore you start to then say uh you know dad uh
00:03:53you know dad can say to you you know yeah i'm not perfect i did this and this but like
00:03:57yeah you don't need to front load kids are kids and like it's a very different kind of person to teach
00:04:01well also because i mean i remember talking to a very close friend of mine who's got a bunch of
00:04:06kids wonderful guy very successful in what he does and i asked him what his parenting advice would be
00:04:12and his first rule was you need to teach your kids to be optimists because action flows from optimism
00:04:20and agency flows from optimism right and so what you're describing sort of creates a picture that
00:04:26you don't want to aspire to engage with and seems antithetical to that they're like two you know
00:04:31second third fourth graders just hang climate change climate change your future is destroyed
00:04:34like what why who thinks this is a good idea right little little kids well and then the older
00:04:39generations are like oh my god these younger generations so apathetic i'm like yeah you're
00:04:42getting waterboarded with existential threat all day yeah you would be too i guess it makes sense that
00:04:48the younger you are the more neuroplastic you are right and even like statements like that are
00:04:53quite reflexive so if if you go on if i go on the news tomorrow and say it's it's going to be a sunny
00:05:00day i have no impact on whether it's going to be a sunny day but a reflexive system is if i go on
00:05:05the news tomorrow and say there's going to be a bank run i have an impact on whether there's going
00:05:10to be a bank run and if you go in thinking america's a terrible country that's going to be quite
00:05:15a reflexive thing for your entire youth i mean it's quite funny listening to an not that you were
00:05:19complaining to him but an american talk about the lack of patriotism in their country it's two brits
00:05:25yeah it's kind of like chris talking to me about like how he's frustrated with the size of his
00:05:28forearms right now you know what i mean like i'm like okay okay i understand but uh yeah i think it's
00:05:33interesting for america to be going through that when you're still by far the tallest midget in the
00:05:38room right totally and and by the way there's so much british history to be proud of oh don't
00:05:43get me started this negative lens don't get me started tim i i declare i i said this to chris
00:05:48previously like we are the most insecure in terms of internal reputation versus external so if you
00:05:56travel anywhere else in the world apart from a few places they often like love the uk um but internally
00:06:02they often criticize themselves the most i'll never forget a friend of mine um uh came uh his sister
00:06:08came home one day and she said you know what she goes britain is the racist country on earth
00:06:15and he paused for a second and he just said compared to where you couldn't answer
00:06:22it's that line about capitalism it's the worst system apart from all of the other ones
00:06:26it's just a crazy distortion lens and it's so self-defeating and it's like this crazy
00:06:30yeah jack butch has got this great line he says unlearning is a hundred times harder than learning
00:06:36and if you're laying down those myelin sheets and some kids who's five years old six seven i don't
00:06:43know when you start to understand what climate is and what power structures look like but yeah you're
00:06:50probably best starting off with generalized optimism and getting into specific pessimism or specific
00:06:55scrutiny as opposed to general high school maybe you know like maybe elementary school is just it's just
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00:07:58end of a clip and the full-length episode is available right here go on

Key Takeaway

Foundational education should prioritize generalized optimism to foster agency in children, as front-loading complex, negative narratives can create self-defeating, reflexive systems of apathy in young learners.

Highlights

  • Lightning strikes the Empire State Building approximately 25 times per year.

  • Bulls charge at movement and physical provocation rather than the color red.

  • Goldfish retain memories for weeks, months, and potentially years.

  • George Washington's dentures contained materials such as tin, gold, lead, and human teeth from enslaved individuals.

  • Water temperature does not affect the antibacterial efficacy of hand washing.

  • Unlearning existing information is 100 times harder than learning it for the first time.

Timeline

Disproven Conventional Wisdom

  • Commonly held beliefs like lightning never striking the same place twice or bulls reacting to red are objectively false.
  • Goldfish possess long-term memory lasting months or years.
  • Hand washing efficacy remains consistent regardless of water temperature.

Many concepts taught in school become disproven over time as scientific understanding evolves. Websites like Retro Codex track these outdated facts by graduation year. These examples demonstrate that initial knowledge is often simplified or entirely incorrect, necessitating the capacity for unlearning.

Educational Frameworks and Optimism

  • Educators often teach simple, incomplete narratives before introducing nuance to complex historical topics.
  • Front-loading young children with extreme existential threats like climate change can induce unnecessary apathy.
  • Action and agency rely on an underlying foundation of optimism.

Teaching methods often follow a trajectory of simplified stories followed by later contextualization. When this model shifts to presenting dark or complex truths to children too early, it undermines the development of optimism. Proponents argue that children benefit from a positive, patriotic framing of their country before engaging with more critical, nuanced history as adults.

Reflexive Systems and Unlearning

  • Negative narratives can become reflexive systems where belief in a negative outcome helps bring that outcome about.
  • Unlearning established information is significantly more difficult than initial learning.
  • Internal criticism and negative self-perception vary widely between cultures, regardless of actual external reputation.

The information assimilated during youth builds structural foundations, such as myelin sheets in the brain. Because unlearning is 100 times harder than learning, early exposure to purely cynical or critical viewpoints can create a persistent, self-defeating perspective. Maintaining a balanced approach allows for the development of both agency and eventual critical scrutiny.

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