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Friday Fun: The 10 Biggest Misconceptions We Learn In School

By jdupuis on October 30, 2009.

Actually, it's not really about misconceptions that we learn only in school, it's more about urban legend/zeitgeist stuff that eveyone knows.

Anyways, The 10 Biggest Misconceptions We Learn In School is from Manolith, a site I've never heard of before. It's rude and crude and definitely not for the faint of heart. Some of the points hit their mark and some miss pretty badly. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Nevertheless, some of them are also pretty amusing:

1. Einstein got bad grades in school

Um... have you heard about this guy Einstein? Famous physicist? Relativity and all that? A genius, even? I'm pretty sure little Albert could handle his business in 4th grade arithmetic. Yes, contrary to popular belief, Einstein was a top student in elementary school, getting mostly "4â³s (on the German grading scale of 1-4), which idiot Americans later assumed, backwardly, were "D"s. The idea stuck because everybody loves the idea that their poor student can go on to great things. Sorry, parents, Einstein was teaching himself calculus at age 12...

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not sure what the german grading system was in einstein's day, but for decades and decades now, the scale has been 1-6, with 1 being the best and 6 being the worst. that said, i've heard many a student sigh with *relief* at getting a 4.