Advice Your Teachers Could Only Give In The '90s

Through science, innovation and technology, so much has changed in the last 20 years that a lot of the things our teachers preached about in the '90s are no longer relevant or applicable to the world we live in today. It's crazy to think how much change has to go on within the educational system to accommodate the vastly progressive landscape.

Once upon a time, technology was a bonus. A calculator was a tool we could use to speed up a process we could do by hand. Now it's an app we pull up with the touch of a finger that takes care of our daily equations. The library used to be a place that we'd go to get information. We'd spend hours going through books, taking notes and studying them. Now we can search for anything on the web in under a second and copy and paste the contents. No notebook needed, no reason to even leave the house. R.I.P. mathematics and libraries.

If you think back to the kinds of things your teachers told you about in the '90s, you'd be surprised to see how many of them just don't matter anymore. Here are a few pieces of advice I've had to let go of.

Hide Your Online Identity

Before we used the Internet to enhance our real lives, we used it as a place to escape. Teachers were constantly warning us about keeping our identities secret online and only talking to friends. We were all terrified we'd get caught in a story line that might end up on To Catch A Predator.

Never Show A Picture

Once upon a time, we were not meant to share any personal qualifiers or media files on the Internet. Now we're just faces with bylines. My, how things have changed!

Math Is Everything

Turns out, you can use a calculator in real life and don't need to understand math at all. It also turns out that every device you have will have a calculator, and you'll never be without one.

TV Will Rot Your Brain

Screens were once seen as a futuristic device bound to turn our minds into mush. That was before everything grew a screen and screens became our number one source of information and learning.

College Is Necessary

As someone who took that advice and is now up to her neck in student loans, I'd like to say that not a single one of my employers has inquired about my college education or asked to see any paper work. I don't regret going, and I'm grateful for the learning experience, but it's not a necessary step after high school. You can find work with out a college education in many fields.

Abstinence

All sex ed was geared towards scaring us away from each form of contraception so that just not having sex was the easiest option, despite our raging hormones. They successful terrified us away from sex by telling us that condoms were not reliable and most birth controls are baby killers rather than fertilization blockers. Now, at least to some degree, our sex education is becoming more realistic and effective by acknowledging that "don't do it" is pretty terrible advice to dispense a bunch of teens about sex.

One Tip That Remains

Wear sunscreen.

Images: Giphy, ABC