States and their Capitols.

I've been helping the little one learn these... And it occurred to me... Why do we teach kids to MEMORIZE the state capitols?

I spent a lot of time learning it in 4th grade and I just came to the realization that the only time it has served any purpose was helping my kids learn it.

I understand learning about the capitol of the state you reside in... That's the seat of your state government. But knowing Little Rock, Harrisburg, Topeka, Olympia, Juneau, etc... has never been much use to me.

Trenton is the capitol of New Jersey. It's famous because that is where George Washington surprised the Hessians... The fact that it's the capitol of NJ really has no bearing on me as someone who doesn't live there.

Other than winning a game of Trivial Pursuit I see no reason to memorize something that is easily referenced from multiple sources.

Mike

Beats me, but I remember learning it too.

We had to learn the state birds and flowers too

I suspect that it is because memorization is good for the brain. Remember when we had to memorize phone numbers? Ask a kid what his parents' phone number(s) are and he will have to look at his contacts on his mobile phone.

learning for learning sake at some point. to set people up for a more common understanding of our nation and geography.

This. It's also a geography lesson.

Agreed on with others as it helps all learning from my perspective and also for many may help increase the interest in learning. Also knowing something about geography helps one know that going to Helena from Madison one goes west.

Bryce

In 1958 in the 6th grade, I had to learn and recite about 25 Psalms. Public school. I'm pretty sure we did the states as well. Also all the countries and capitals in Central and South America.

I recall in about 7th grade we had to memorize all 72 counties in Wisconsin.
I'd be lucky to get 50 of them now.

Zim

We learn a lot of stuff in school that's completely useless. There's a lot of essential things that schools Don teach. Nobody needs to o know about the reproductive parts of a flower, but it's taught in public school. Everyone needs to know how to do laundry,.but schools don't teach it.

Knowing how to do laundry is not only necessary, it's also a very complex skillset. Another example of how schools fail our children.

It’s like when I asked my geometry teacher what he did as part of his everyday routine. He listed the usual things one typically does every day. I then said...”notice how you didn’t say geometry “

I do not believe he was very amused

Your geometry teacher was never a carpenter or machinest.

Because long ago, someone with an education PhD thought up "social studies" that crammed a number of what used to be "core" subjects into one "subject and never understood the science of geography, just random factoids that they thought was geography. The spatial science of looking at things geographically has been lost on multiple generations of Americans even though geography was considered a "mother" science by the ancient Greeks.

Geography, as academic departments, got thrown out of the Ivy league schools starting in the 1920s when they found out one of the leading American geographers was queer (my, how the times have changed!) and the black-eye that "environmental determinism" got after the Nazis used in their racial/ethnic philosophy. Because anything can be be studied in a spatial way, geography was often considered a "weak" science because it could be so broad, kind of like when I tell people I have history degrees and then they expect me to know everything that has gone in with recorded human activity since things started to be written down.

The specialized sub-sciences cleaned the geographers clocks starting in the 1950s because they could point to a few things they studied in great detail. I work with lots of those people, fantastic experts for a single thing, not much knowledge about most anything else. Yet, a well-rounded geographer knows a little bit about a lot of things. I had an eye-opening experience 20 or so years ago as a non-traditional "intern" when a group of mappers brought me their national map that had took multi-years in creating, and said, "what do you see in this map?" and wanted me to write up "stories" that were visible in the map if you knew the patterns that were visible. It blew me away that these people had no interest in using their final product, their "thrill" was in the processes of creating the map. Specialists...

but zucchini blossoms how will you know about the male and female flower and pollination?

much of that is the science finding out how you do with science to see if you will go into a science career or a math career or some other

give you a taste of everything so you can find what you like.

your mother or father should spend some time teaching these other things cooking , cleaning , laundry and you should have plenty of practice doing them as weekly chores.

Michigan doesn;t have a capitol

I don't want schools teaching things you're supposed to learn from your parents or figure out by yourself.

I'd rather they teach the reproductive parts of a flower and other things parents can't teach.

Jim

In grade school we had to pick a state and do a report on the economy, people, climate etc. Also had to do a country in central or south america.

It seems schools should teach what a male and female are. There seems to be much confusion on this subject nowadays.
Maybe a little English. Take a statement like," a person should be judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin." and break it down and define what that statement means. There also seems to be much confusion on understanding the meaning of such statements nowadays.

Knowledge is Freedom
Teach them EVERYTHING possible under the sun
If I don't learn something new everyday, I feel the day was wasted
And the Capitals are part of the history of this Great country

Lots of interesting points.

Knowing about a single state or south american country picked at random is of little value. This is teaching a skill (how to do research) rather than teaching facts.

NonPC's observation regarding specialists is spot on. Unfortunately when specialists teach they exhibit the same tunnel vision and are often unable to make any connection between their subject and practical application. For example, math teachers will teach about exponential functions in analytical geometry, but when ever did any one of them mention that it describes the flow rate change with change in level for a tank draining out the bottom?

At some point in time I was probably required to learn state capitals, but I can't ever recall needing that information in a time frame that precluded looking it up. Now, with Google at our fingertips, memorizing that information becomes an even greater waste of time. Memorizing multiplication tables is another matter. I use that every day and need it without delay.

You maybe on the T.V. show the "The Chase" and it may come in handy, LOL