What if everything you learned in school was wrong?

Have you considered how your life would be different if things you learned in school were wrong?  Would there be a difference between things we were taught being deliberately wrong or accidentally wrong?  I’m not talking about things like mathematics which are based on premises we all accept such as that two plus two equals four.  It doesn’t matter if we call it four or squiggle.  We would all know that if we have two things in one hand and two in the other, we have the same quantity as someone else who has two in one hand and two in the other.  Or three in one hand and one in the other.  Even animals can count for some small numbers.

We can also discount history from this discussion as history is always written from the point of view of whoever is in power at the moment – usually the winners of the most recent conflict.  So most history should be taken with a grain of salt.

But can we believe the science we’ve been taught?  Or can we believe anything promoted by big business interests?  Pharmaceutical companies who slant their research?  Banks who promote unhealthy loans?  Insurance companies whose goal is profits rather than the health of the insurees?  Any advertising by any company?

When I was growing up, we believed.  We believed advertisers.  We believed history books.  We believed our governments.  I don’t think many of us believe any more.  It all feels like Santa Claus.

Are we so focused on teaching “facts” that we have stopped teaching the critical thinking skills necessary to advance knowledge and understanding?  Necessary to function in a society that may not have our individual best interests at heart?  “Facts” are easy to teach.  Reasoning is not only harder to teach, it is harder to measure, so it is harder to test for it and grade based on it.  But reasoning is what we need to do to navigate the conflicting claims of doctors, nutritionists, advertisers.  In short, anyone who wants to “sell” us something, even if that something is just information.

So maybe instead of just watching TV with your kids, you should be dissecting the information being presented.  Watch a commercial and then ask questions like “do you believe what they just told you?”  and “Why?” or “Why not?”  If the schools are not going to teach this – and mass media are certainly not going to teach this, it is now up to the parents and grandparents to teach it.