( We've got a lot more school-issued B.S. where that came from. Buy Cracked's De-Textbook and learn why everything you know about the founding of America is a lie .)

Mostly . Teachers are people, too, and people have this nasty tendency to occasionally lob whatever untruth comes flying at them right back at somebody else like a game of bullshit ping pong. For example ...

Right around the time we learn to start questioning the ways of this wonderful world around us, our parents start packing us onto school buses every morning, because who the hell has time for all those obnoxious questions? Let the professionals address the budding curiosity of our children; we've got America's Next Top Model to watch. Teachers are better equipped to deal with those questions anyway, right? Right!

6 The Coriolis Effect Controls the Direction in Which Toilet Water Drains

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The Myth:

As soon as we learn that the Earth rotates on its axis, we learn all the cool effects that this has on our lives. It gives us day and night, causes the stars to move across the sky, and causes the swirly to be a completely different hairstyle in Australia than in America. That last one is because of something called the Coriolis effect, which causes toilet water to drain in a counterclockwise direction in the Northern Hemisphere but in a clockwise direction in the Southern one.

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On the equator, toilets don't flush at all. People bury their waste in the yard.

It makes sense: To the people facing down from the North, the Earth moves in a counterclockwise direction, while to the people facing up from the South, the Earth is rotating clockwise, thus causing the water in their respective hemispheres to drain in the direction of their perceived rotation.

The Reality:

The Coriolis effect is totally a thing, and it really does affect the direction in which things spin. Like this:

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Say, when you and your enemy exchange grenades on a merry-go-round.

But the sharper-eyed among you might have noticed that, in the diagram above, the object was relatively big in relation to the spinning disc. And that's the trick: In order for Coriolis force to have an effect on earthly phenomena, said phenomena have to be really big. So Coriolis force affects the direction in which hurricanes and cyclones spin, seeing as how those things are massive amalgamations of murderwind, but it doesn't affect your little toilet, no matter how murderish your personal wind may be.