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People Divulge The Most Useless Things They Ever Learned In School

People Divulge The Most Useless Things They Ever Learned In School
Aaron Burden/Unsplash

In 1492 Colombus sailed the ocean blue.

... it's a rhyme that's stuck in so many of our heads, but its completely useless. You know it, I know it, the schools knew it.


Colombus wasn't the first to "discover" America, and none of the little chants mentioned the whole murderous rampagey bits.

But the ocean was BLUE, y'all. And that rhymes with TWO, like 1492. So here we are.

Reddit was asked:

"What's the most useless thing you learned in school?"

... and yeah ... it would be great if the educational system gave us something useful.

Mostly, it's stuff like this, though:

Ginger

Musik Violin GIF by PLAYMOBILGiphy

"Probably that apparently Vivaldi's nickname was 'the red priest.' "

"We had to study for exams but our teacher decided to visit 3 separate websites and make us read about him."

- Kirby_ewe

"My music history professor taught us that 'Vivaldi is also known as the red priest. Because he was a COMMUNIST!? No, he just had red hair'."

- nekofastboy

"I fully support the "dive into knowledge about one famous person you want to write about", but not 50, and NOT people who's only accomplishment was to write a couple of poetry books that made my teacher weak in the knees. And of course, there was a 'wrong' way to interpret his works."

-Rubyhamster

Square Dancing Squid

"I haven't really found a use for square dancing."

- ToastAndASideOfToast

"Swing your partner round and round"

- SelectionMission3460

"Same. We learned it in my school cause it's the states dance. But I have never known anyone to square dance besides the TV people."

- USSCofficail

"You haven't found a use for square dancing YET. Just wait for a Squid Games situation."

- HolleighLujah

Disco Ball Demographics

House Music Dancing GIF by JustinGiphy

"Kentucky creates 90% of U.S disco balls."

- No_School_4156

"Wow. I live in Kentucky but I never knew that... seems useless!"

- Black_Hole_Neptune

"Actually makes sense if you think about it."

"Disco balls are a niche item that you wouldn't expect to have a ton of different manufacturers, and Kentucky is centrally located so you can easily ship your balls to anywhere in the US quickly."

- fix-ur-acrostics

History Is A Mystery

"In public school we skimmed through the Vietnam war because there was little time left before testing and it wasn't gonna be on there that much."

" 'Long story short, we kinda lost that one...'."

- Senior20172

"It always bothered me when history stopped at WW2 and the rest was covered in a week"

- cheesefondue

"We skimmed over the civil rights and women's rights movements because our white, male, douche of a teacher wanted to spend more time on the civil war."

- MoobooMagoo

"It's been a long time, but I feel like US history is basically always taught as: American Revolution -> Civil War (aka, slavery) -> WW2 (aka, the Nazis), and we're done."

"If your teacher was a Boomer, they might spend more time on the 60s, civil rights, Vietnam. (aka, the glory years when they were a teen) But otherwise, history is basically the wars we WON, why we got in them, and the aftermath."

- TristanaRiggle

Not So Useless Uselessness

Sad Season 4 GIF by The OfficeGiphy

"Haven't played the recorder very often."

- deede7

"Really? I play mine nearly every day. How do you make money when abroad if not playing Hot Cross Buns for 9 hours every day?"

- AnAquaticOwl

"No but it was my first significant taste of playing an instrument. This lead to 7 years of band class and lead to a great social past time in my adult life playing bass after that."

- Oclure

"Playing the recorder was probably way more useful than you think. Music theory and playing an instrument trains the ear and has positive effects on the brain and learning in general. Plus, it introduces kids to an activity they may or may not wish to pursue and, for those that do not wish it, they can definitively rule the interest out because they gave it a try already."

- Anianna

"Learning the recorder helped teach me to read music. I studied other instruments, and enjoyed them a LOT. Not that I was any good."

- KidsTheseDaysYknow

Tariff Trauma

"I know that the Hawley-Smoot tariff was the highest in history. No idea what the importance of that is, if it was good, bad, or indifferent."

- GrizzlyLawyer

"The importance is that some people believe it made the Great Depression a lot worse."

- ReadinII

"Actually you're only kinda right."

" 'The tariffs under the act, excluding duty-free imports, were the SECOND HIGHEST in United States history, exceeded by only the Tariff of 1828.[3] ' "

" 'The Act prompted retaliatory tariffs by affected states against the United States.[4] The Act and tariffs imposed by America's trading partners in retaliation were major factors of the reduction of American exports and imports by 67% during the Depression.[5] Economists and economic historians have a consensus view that the passage of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff worsened the effects of the Great Depression.[6]' "

- Soogoodok248

"Second highest? You mean I only learned one thing in school, and it was wrong?"

- GrizzlyLawyer

Opposite Effect

season 2 GIFGiphy

"D.A.R.E."

- mrPandabot35

"I remember hearing a story about a 10 year old who called the cops on his parents because they smoked weed regularly. The police arrested both parents and charged them with felony possession."

"They were normal parents as far as we could tell. They just used to relax with a little Marijuana now and then."

"But the kid specifically quoted DARE when asked what led him to get his parents arrested. That's when I realized how awful what we were taught was."

- PhreedomPhighter

"Fun fact, it's been known for decades that D.A.R.E is a failure and leads to more drug usage. The first of these studies was in 1992."

- Pixel871

President Who?

"Being forced to memorize all the presidents in order. First and last names and years in office in chronological order."

"This sh*t can be googled in 2 seconds. We actually had a test on this where we were given a blank piece of paper and told to write them all down in the right order and this was actually a legit graded test."

- pintoftomatoes

"This is the one and only test I ever cheated on."

"5th grade. I’m so sorry Mr. Lee, but even at 10 years old and pre-internet, I thought this was a ridiculous waste of time."

- QuercusAgri

"Animaniacs practically helped me cheat on that one."

- operarose

Calculators And Pockets

Calculating Figure It Out GIFGiphy

"That I wouldn't always have a calculator with me. Jokes on you.

- Fickle-Story-4854

"My dad once didn’t let my sister use a calculator on homework even though the teacher told everyone they needed to use a calculator 🤦♀️"

- Shadowweavers

"Yes, also heard that many times in school"

- Jarl_Fenrir

"Funny enough I did carry a tiny solar powered calculator meant to fit inside a check book for several years just to spite my obnoxious math teacher who said that all the time."

"Though I’ll admit it was useful to have before cellphones were ubiquitous."

- flying_fish69

Basic history

"Elementary school history. Most of it is either a lie/omission of key facts or just a completely random and useless fact."

- OkWalk9190

"The amount of Columbus sh*t I learned in elementary school..."

- Arxl

"What do you mean the pilgrims didn’t actually land on Plymouth Rock??"

- himewaridesu

"What pisses me off is that history is being repeated in later classes, higher schools. If you are going to teach me the same thing again, maybe just leave it now, and get back to me with the material when I'm old enough?"

- Jarl_Fenrir

"Yeah. I'm just getting into to high school and I've learned about the civil war like 5 times now. The only problem is that we never are taught anything after it, so all of my info post-civil war is based off of personal research."

- _Sterben-

We'll be honest, most of these answers clearly came from American schools.

Lots of our readers come from other countries, though - can you tell the rest of us some of the more useless things you've been taught?

Help us feel a bit better about ourselves.

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Historical Events So Ridiculous They Sound Made Up

A Redditor asked: 'What’s an event in history that is so ridiculous it sounds fake?'

historical reenactors
Sigmund on Unsplash

We've probably all heard some variation of the saying "Truth is stranger than fiction."

Real life isn't just strange, it can also be downright ridiculous.

History is riddled with moments of absurdity.

So ridiculous that people have a hard time believing real life is, well, really real.

Keep reading...Show less
person holding photo of three girls near chainlink fence
Anita Jankovic on Unsplash

Life is all about learning new things, including learning new things about the people in your life. Sometimes, the things you learn are shocking, disgusting, or even scary.

I was the new kid in town when I was in fifth grade and my first friend was this quiet (and cute) boy in my class. He and I remained friends through middle school, and even though we drifted apart in high school, our interactions when we ran into each other in the halls or the cafeteria were really nice.

All throughout school and even beyond, he remained quiet, polite, and reserved. Just a few years ago, I read a news article written about him. He had apparently fatally wounded his father after an argument.

I had to reread the article several times to make sure it was really about my old friend. I think about it a lot, and still can't believe it!

I'm not the only one that has a shocking story like that. A lot of Redditors learned shocking or scary things about people from their childhood, and are ready to share.

It all started when Redditor ValuableHovercraft90 asked:

"What's the scariest thing you have found out about someone from your childhood (old friends, teachers, etc)?"

So Creepy

"That the boy who lived across the street and moved when I was 6 is still obsessed with me and my sister 30+ years later and posts ramblings on Facebook with our names and that he's going to be with us. Pretty terrifying honestly."

– mrscrawfish

The Worst List

"A neighbour died when he was 30. Police searched a trailer he owned and found weapons, bombs and a list of people he wanted to kill. My uncle was on that list."

– Flashy_Somewhere_648

"I'm glad this ended the way it did."

– CreepyCandidate4449

Terrifying

"One of my best friends (and locker partner) from high school was kidnapped by terrorists in Iraq. After a nightmare of 6+ months, all went silent. We buried an empty casket in his memory 10 years later."

– francois_du_nord

"This is horrifying. How incredibly sad for family to never get any closure. Very sad to read this. :("

– fizzycherryseltzer

"About 15 years ago my dad received a very good offer for work in Iraq, as a construction specialist. He was considering going, since at the same time the financial crisis started in Europe, but then one of his friends, a civil engineer, was kidnapped. Never returned back either."

– 19lgkrn70

"Same thing for my dad old coworker told him how great the money was. Dude got sniped working on a radio tower or something. My dad luckily was like, "I got a wife and family that would kill me for doing something so dangerous.""

– tristanjones

End Of The Friendship

"One of my dad's good friends, and my "uncle", just stopped coming around one day. I was told he was always busy with work, away, etc."

"Turns out, he killed 3 people in a drug deal gone bad and got life in prison."

"What's scary, is that we were over at his house for a weekend BBQ with a bunch of people earlier in the day of the night he did it, and it happened at his house."

– pnwking509

School Friends

"Don't know if it was scary, but I grew up with a kid whose birthday was the day before mine so we almost always shared birthdays in elementary school. We were friends, even spent the night at his house growing up. Later on in our teens, he started getting into some really dark stuff. I recognize that now as his being a sociopath, but like most everybody else at the time, figured it was just him going through some kind of emo phase. Over the years, we lost touch but I would occasionally run into him around town and our meetings were cordial, if not friendly."

"Last year, he was sentenced to 35 years in prison for killing a man back in 1993, roughly 3 years after we got out of High School. Apparently he, his sister and another man lured this guy out to the boonies and killed him to steal money he had gotten in an insurance settlement."

"The only reason they were caught is the other guy got religion, felt remorse and went on the local TV station and aired a confession before turning himself in (He got 25 to life)."

– 530_Oldschoolgeek

"A girl I went to school with did the same thing. She was the nicest girl, got good grades & was kind of a dork. Mixed with the wrong people after graduation. She and two others lured an old man into an abandoned building, stabbed him and robbed him. He later died from his wounds."

– HereF0rTheSnacks

The Worst Afternoon

"I had a friend in grade school who was being raised by her single dad. She had a unique name and pretty face. She never talked about her mom, and she was super outgoing, so all us kids just made friends with her quickly. It was weird her dad never brought her to our birthday parties, even though she was always invited, but we didn’t think much of it. A couple times, she was allowed to ride the bus home with me after school, and we played and had fun until her dad came to pick her up. Later in the school year, she invited me to ride the bus to her house, and my mom agreed. I was 10. It was the scariest afternoon of my young life. I cannot articulate the extreme tension in her home. We weren’t allowed to make any noise, and we mostly stayed outside, me desperate for my mom to arrive."

"Her dad screamed at us for opening the door, and I was too nervous to go into the house to use the restroom. I knew she was embarrassed that there were no snacks or comforting interactions, like at my house. I didn’t really tell anyone how uncomfortable the experience was. After that day, I didn’t hang out with her a lot. We were in different classes, drifted apart, and decades later, when my own daughter asked to go to a friend’s house, I thought about that girl."

"As an adult, I figured out her dad probably worked a night shift and tried to sleep during the day…or he was an alcoholic who was really angry. Maybe both? I looked her up on social media, and thanks to her unique name and face, I recognized her immediately. She’s a perfectly well-adjusted woman with a beautiful family. She even had pictures of her kids with her dad and tributes to him as the greatest father and grandpa. Her whole page made me wonder what the hell I experienced that afternoon in the 4th grade?"

– OlderAndTired

School Is Supposed To Be Safe!

"In our school, we had something called "de halte." In English, it means "the halt" literally translated. Basically time out. BIf you had a meltdown in class or you were just a little sh*thead, you were sent there for 15 minutes or so to cool off.

The de hatle teacher got fired and jailed for breaking 4 different wrists of 4 different students by bending them the wrong way..."

– Ok_Win7358

*Skin Crawling*

​"There was this classmate a grade below me but all grades shared the same drama class. She was weird and kind of "off." I tried to befriend her at one point and was rebuffed. It later came out that she was actually an almost 30-year-old woman who would show up in a new area claiming to be a 15-year-old runaway. Kind of freaked me out."

jackfaire

It turns out it was a good thing that the friendship didn't work out!