Things you remember being shocked or surprised to learn at school

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Some basic facts you learn at school can be really shocking when you first hear them, and this was long before the Horrible Histories books. Some of the OMG moments I remember were:

Punishments in Victorian schools, such as being hauled up to the ceiling.

The Incan punishment of holding a child over a fire of chilli peppers, so they would inhale the smoke.

Swarms of locusts destroying all greenery in minutes.

The story of Abraham nearly sacrificing his son Isaac. (Yes I know, it’s a Bible story which probably didn’t happen, but in my primary school days, it was almost presented as fact, before teachers had to say “some people believe”).

Of course, a teacher would normally explain these without any emotion at all, and somehow this made them all the more astounding, that they didn’t seem bothered at all.

@6ate9 yes it was rugby/football for boys and hockey/netball for girls at mine too.

I remember watching The Dying Rooms. The film investigated allegations of extreme neglect, high mortality rates, and the purported practice of leaving unwanted infants (mostly baby girls) in isolated rooms to die under China's one-child policy.

It was extremely sad and disturbing.

That’s a lot of pressure to put on 10 year olds!

That men do DIY and deal with finances, amongst other 'manly' occupations. In my family, it was very much the women who did everything!

Also, that hockey and netball are strictly for girls, and rugby, cricket and football are for boys only. I hated netball with a passion (too much standing around due to footwork faults, and getting knicker-draft in short skirts) and shocked the PE teachers by saying that I'd rather do cricket and rugby.

This was around 2010...

Did anyone else wear black ‘gym knickers’ for indoor PE? I never understood why we couldn’t wear our PE skirt! Boys wore shorts!

In my school we had to campaign just to be allowed the standard thick black tights! Only 5th years were allowed. We had to wear green or beige. This was before coloured tights were popular and easy to get. We were also pretty rural.

I don’t remember really being shocked at anything except learning about how many Jewish people died in WW2. And that wasn’t even in lessons, I’d found a book about Corrie Ten Boom in the school library.

I changed boarding schools for the sixth form, and discovered to my astonishment that it wasn’t normal or compulsory to be unhappy at school.

We had a petition to wear trousers at school as well - would have been about 1991/2, I think. Madness.

I also started a petition for a girl’s football team at school. I was made captain. We were crap 😂

I went to a faith school and look back now with horror at the abuses carried out by bible figures which was sold to us as evidence of their deep devotion to God, and therefore laudable.

DD is only 19 and had to petition to be allowed to wear knee length PE shorts like the boys, rather than the tight, short skort for girls which showed off arse cheek in most students. Now they offer the choice of either but I still wonder why the girls' option is 4 inches shorter.

I had to wear a leotard or thick blue gym knickers, while the boys wore shorts. And we also had netball and hockey for the girls and football, cricket and rugby for the boys.

That (I believe this was the 1960s?) they used to think smoking was good for you. In fact I watched a programme recently called Hazardous History where they used to give cigarettes to people with asthma. For some of us cigarette smoke is a trigger

It’s hard to believe now!

Doctors regularly recommended specific cigarette brands for health, and hospitals even provided cigarettes to patients to calm their nerves. Smoking was thought to aid digestion and soothe stress.

My sister and I went to an all girls school. By the time my sister (younger) left in 1999, girls were still not permitted to wear trousers

How much blood and guts come pouring out when a bunch of people catch a massive whale and slice it open. They showed us videos of whale flencing when we were about 7/8. Then told us makeup has whale blubber in it.

Still served mystery meat in the canteen every day?!

I had been married for 14 years before rape within marriage was finally outlawed. I remember when that legislation was going through parliament. The end of men's "conjugal rights" was a huge leap forward in women's rights.

I clearly remember when the police used not to "interfere" in matters of domestic violence, as they were deemed to be a personal matter.

The school trousers policies are a big suprise to me. I was at comprehensive school in the 70s and the girls were allowed to wear trousers if they wished at my school. Both boys and girls did woodwork, metalwork and cookery.

I was shocked when I learned at school (from my friends, NOT from the teachers!) about what the actual mechanics of sex were and which part of the male anatomy was put into which part of the female. I was disgusted and absolutely astonished to think that anyone would ever want to do it! I was about 12 or 13 at the time.

I also learned from school friends that having started my periods, again at about 13, I would have a bleed every month for (what felt like) the rest of my life! I was horrified by that prospect - as anyone who has experienced a Dr White's sanitary belt and sanitary towels would be! Thank goodness my daughter and granddaughters don't have to do battle with those dreadful things every month!

My parents never ever discussed sex, menstruation or anything vaguely related to it. I had to get all my information from friends (those who had more enlightened parents) and teen magazines. I was determined that my own children would not be ignorant like I was, so I bought picture books of anatomy and sex and told my little ones all about sex and periods before they even started school, so they were fully informed and it felt to them as if it was something they had always known about.

I was quite surprised to learn how even as recently as the 1950s, children could often die from illnesses we wouldn’t think much about now, such as colds. I remember a 1940’s children’s book saying gravely “Now, Timothy’s cold had become serious…”, and all the medically delicate children in books such as The Chalet School. I was incredibly lucky with my health through my childhood, and hardly needed medical treatment at all, so it was quite a shock to me that some children could die from seemingly ordinary illnesses.

I started secondary in 89

In that time we had to fight for over 3 years to wear trousers/shorts (we did get our own way but the boys almost ruined it by pushing to be allowed to wear skirts)

Girls had to have rucksacks but boys could have rucksacks or sports bags

Sports where firmly football/rugby/swimming/cross country/tennis for boys

Girls played netball/tennis/hockey and did swimming

(We did fight for the right to play football but lost it again when the school bully kicked it hard in my face and broke my nose-nothing happened to her but I was blamed for football being 'too dangerous' for girls as they withdrew it again)

Boys did woodwork/diy and girls did cooking/textiles

They did a childcare course (basically knowing most of the girls would be knocked up within a year of leaving,they figured theyd teach us what to buy/do so we had some idea) and they had endless meetings to decide if boys could do the course as well (they finally allowed them but it took some fighting from one forward thinking teacher)

I remember my parents being outraged at this and almost stopped me from taking the course (they think education is a waste of time for females)

My mother had to give up her job when I came along as there was no such thing as maternity leave (in another life,she would have been a working mum but was very sneery at women who managed to have kids and a career)

To this day,all the household bills are in my father's name as 'women couldn't then,and cant now,handle money,all women are fit for is being in the kitchen and raising kids' (they married in 71)

We cannot allow our hard fought for and won rights to slide backwards

My primary school headteacher used to rant extensively about the reading books we had being full of stories of boys out having a good time, and girls at home helping Mother. She used to make us swap the boys’ and girls’ names when we read them. I didn’t find this very shocking, but it’s good to know that she was forward thinking, and maybe she had to fight her way up.

I remember a time when children from an older class asked each of us in turn “would you prefer to be a doctor or a nurse?” Looking back, I expect this was an exercise to see if all the boys said “doctor”, and the girls said “nurse”.

We have RMPS in Scottish schools which is compulsory to S5.
DD17 took it as a higher, and says though that even though its compulsory it didnt get through to some of the hard line Taters and Trumpers in the class. They would literally argue facts and statistics!

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, European doctors routinely prescribed stays in the Swiss Alps for patients with tuberculosis and other lung ailments. Physicians believed the cold, dry, pure mountain air and intense alpine sunshine had healing properties before effective antibiotics were discovered.

I was at high school in 1991 and remember the change in legislation. It got a huge amount of press coverage. We regularly had to debate contentious issues from the news as part of our English syllabus and I remember this being a topic, with the class properly split between those who believed that sex without consent was rape, and should be prosecuted as such, even within a marriage, and those who believed that marriage was, in itself, consent and women were going too far with this "demand". There were boys and girls on both sides of the debate.

I remember privately feeling like this was a very good thing - I was scared of growing up and getting married and having my husband able to do whatever he wanted, whenever. But everyone around me, including my parents and other family members, were firmly on the "against" side so I echoed their views (and betrayed the sisterhood) in public.

Btw, we would have been around 12-13 at this point. Every part of this is terrifying when I think back to it now.

I was in a private Catholic school in Paris, very posh but also very liberal, we weren't taught to take the Bible for facts, so we could talk about Adam and Eve in the morning, and then dinosaurs and evolution in the afternoon. For me, it was just nice stories.
YET, there's one thing I took literally, and it was that the communion Host was the body of Jesus.

I was very impatient to have my Communion so I could have the Host, because I was sooo anxious that almost 2000 years after his death, not much would be left of Jesus' body. I remember going to mass, seeing people taking the Host and thinking "leave me some pleaaase"

Obviously, I was more anxious to get a slice of Jesus than to commit cannibalism.

So I was somewhat surprised to discover that it was indeed just a wafer.