10 “Facts” Your Teachers Told You

And why they’re complete garbage

Photo by Icons8 Team on Unsplash

Why do we go to school?

It’s an easy question with an easy answer: to learn things.

Unfortunately, not everything we learn is true.

Teachers — like many in positions of power — like to demonstrate their intellectual superiority. They rarely question their own beliefs, and those being taught never challenge what they hear.

So, in order to counter this problem, I’ve done some research and debunked some of the most common “facts” we’re taught at school:

1. Dropping a Coin From a Great Height Can Kill Someone

A photograph of some coins by Michael Sander, 2016 (Wikimedia Commons)

I often heard this one on school trips. We’d be walking along the top of some famous landmark, and a teacher would shout something like …

“Don’t drop any coins. You could kill people on the ground!”

Well, actually no …

If you throw a penny from one of the tallest buildings in the world — such as the Empire State Building — it won’t kill anyone. It will flutter down like a leaf, cushioned by the air…