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.

'It's about how children navigate adult words without the map.' I like the way you put that.

When I was about 8, I heard my older brother and his friends refer to 'bird shit'. I assumed this was the correct term for the stuff. Until I pointed some out to my mum a few days later. Her reaction was much as you might expect ...

Both your mother and mine must have known we weren't using these words in order to shock them, or be naughty. But I guess they couldn't help reacting with horror.

I went to an RC girls' school, so not metalwork, compulsory cooking and sewing, no trousers. Limited sex ed, just a long list of contraceptives that were 'banned'

My brother went to the RC boys school in town. I think his sex education was non existant.

When I was about 17 my brother's friend needed someone to talk to, he's asked my brother a question about whether he could have got his girlfriend pregnant.

My brother didn't know so the friend was sent for a walk with my mother to explain what they had been doing and for my mum to say no she couldn't be as they were both virgins.

I was a bit insulted they hadn't asked me but totally shocked both my brother and his friend thought a girl could get pregnant from a hand job.

I still recall a biology lesson where the teacher said “you, you, you” and pointed to random children across the class and then said “will get cancer” making his point about 1 in 3 people.

To this day I’m relived he never pointed at me but now that would cause outrage but this was the early 80s, imagine that now!

This made me smile, I’m also the same. But I lived in a village outside the main town so was considered to be one of the posh (poor) kids!

I didn't learn this at school but on an Access course in my 30's.

For context the 11+ used to be the big exam taken at the end of primary school that decided whether you went on to grammar school or secondary modern. Most of my early schooling was spent working towards this exam. It decided the course of your life, passing the 11+ meant you went to grammar school, took O levels at 16 and went on to university or a decent career. Failing it meant secondary modern school, CSE exams and probably working in more menial roles.

I scored a borderline failure mark when I took my 11+ and had to be interviewed by a panel of adults who got to decide whether I was intelligent enough for the local grammar. I was a painfully shy eleven year old who was tongue tied throughout the cross examination and I failed to impress them.

As a result of this I went on to spend five years in the hell hole of the local secondary modern. If you've watched the film Kes it was a pretty accurate depiction of my school life.

I was livid in later years to find out that the pass mark for the 11+ for girls was set higher than for the boys. According to the teacher on the Access course this was because girls aged 11 tended to perform better in exams than boys of that age. So in order to avoid having grammar schools full of girls and secondary modern schools full of boys different pass marks were set.

If I'd been a boy I'd have passed that exam and had a totally different life.

The unfairness of that still rankles to this day. And the fact I went on to get a degree in my thirties proves to me the system was wrong.

The famine in Ethiopia and the pictures of the children.

A poster upthread talked about learning to serve in tennis. I remember that too, but I was more surprised that we were being taught how to do something. It sounds really daft, but our games teacher just picked roles for us e.g. in netball and if you hadn’t played before you just had to figure it out by trial and error. I’d just assumed that’s what happened in PE!

Another poster talked about what we might look back on in fifty years as shocking from today. I think that we just shrugged at the effects of repeated covid infections on children. I think, as with smoking, where there was a strong body of knowledge, the studies and evidence mount up but will be ignored for years. The number of children who already haven’t recovered surpasses the numbers of the infected blood scandal.

Absolutely not in 1981, that’s for sure! I had a credit card whilst living at home and no one but me signed for it 😀

My dad was talking to an old school friend recently about going to the doctors when they were younger. The doctor always had a fag on the go and a full ashtray while seeing patients. He also used to give the patients money to nip across the road and buy him more if he was running out. 😆

It really was a different time!

Smoking used to be allowed on commercial airplanes for decades. Passengers could freely light cigarettes, cigars, and pipes in the cabin during flights.

Commercial airplanes must legally keep an ashtray in or near every toilet, even though smoking is banned just in case a passenger breaks the rules!

Stick-on pads didn't exist when I started my periods. Sanitary towels were thick pads, about 8 inches long, with a loop of tape sewn into each end. To wear the towels you needed to use a sanitary belt, which was essentially an elastic belt that went around your waist and had two hook things hanging down from the belt. You had to attach the loops of the sanitary towel into the hooks. It was similar to a suspender belt for stockings (I don't suppose you remember those?).
They were terribly uncomfortable and used to twist and chafe. Doing PE while wearing one was a nightmare!

@miphi “The famine in Ethiopia and the pictures of the children.”

Michael Buerk’s report was devastating.

Dawn, and as the sun breaks through the piercing chill of night on the plains outside Korem, it lights up a biblical famine – now, in the 20th Century."

The rate has risen now.

1 in 2 people born in the UK will be diagnosed with some form of cancer in their lifetime.

My Mum said that, and she went to primary school during the war.

My Mum refused to believe that such a small country could be called Great Britain, let alone rule somewhere as huge as India.

That a baby came out of, well, where is comes out of. Circa 1969 I think

Love this. Our family doctor was the same. He used to bang in the wall of his surgery to summon the next patient from the waiting room.

That our chemistry teacher had trained to be a monk and then switched to being a scientist. That seemed so bizarre.

I remember as a little girl, looking in the mirror and wondering how a baby could ever fit! 🤣

🤣🤣 I remember a classmate saying “I’ll never have a baby because my mouth’s not big enough” 😱

🤣🤣

Brilliant

When l was in the sixth form at school, one of my friends sidled up to a group of us in the common room and in hushed tones, asked if any of us 'had anything' because she'd just started her period.
We did. But we all had tampons, and she said she'd never used one.
I don't remember being told about tampons when we had 'the talk' at school (this was in the very early 1970s), I think we were just given a little booklet and a sample of some kind of sanitary towel.
So off we trooped to the loos mob handed, she went into a cubicle clutching a Tampax, and one of the girls was literally shouting instructions to her.
"Right, you know there's a hole at the front that you pee out of, and there's one at the back for number twos.... well, there's another one in between those two. That's where it goes."
We were all in fits, while this poor lass was in the loo, obviously struggling.
She's wailing "I can't find it, l mustn't have one, l won't be able to get married and have babies...."
Fast forward ten years, she's married and just had her first baby.
I went to visit when he was about a month old, he was gorgeous, but had been 10lb at birth! (She and her husband were both tall people.)
I couldn't resist. I said "So l gather you found it eventually, Carol?"
She burst out laughing and said "Bloody hell, did l not. And the size he (the baby) was, when l get in the bath, the water level goes down!"

Brilliant, thank you!

I first flew in 1994 with relatives that were smokers. They booked our seats in the non-smoking area and kept going for a fag at the back of the plane. How daft was it really as there was nothing to segregate each area. I did wonder why there were still ashtrays on planes and coaches though. 👍🏻

I was at secondary in the early 90’s. Our PE teacher also used to watch us in the shower but the boy’s teacher was even worse. After PE when they went in the shower, the teacher used to strip stark bollock naked and get in the shower with them. They all thought it was completely normal at the time. I was talking to an old male school friend about it a couple of years ago when his own son was at secondary and he was going on about how he would react now if a teacher did the same with his son.

I also know someone that went on a school trip when they were about 9/10 and a male teacher went around all of the girls when they were in bed checking that they’d taken their knickers off. He told the other teachers what he was doing and they all let him. This would have been around 1980.