My understanding about learning and memory is that the more you know about a topic, the easier it is to learn and remember new things. Each bit of information that you know/remember acts as a sort of “hook” that makes it easier to attach new related information. So when you learn about a state, you might learn where it is located and then next learn its capital. Although it may not seem so significant, it helps you learn more things.

One way these hooks can help you is in conversation. If you meet someone from Deleware, you might ask them where in Deleware. Then you could aks them where their hometown is in relation to the capital, Dover. Not only does know the capital give you another question to ask, but it will also likely help you remember their answer.

Another reason to learn capitals, is it will hopefully inspire curiousity about why that city is the capital. For instance, Boston is likely the capital because it is the biggest city. Des Moines is both central and the bigged city. Harrisburg is fairly central, but by no means the biggest city. Why the heck is Tallahasse the capital of Florida? Now I am curious, I might just look that up now. Anyhow, that is another way that the capital can be a hook for additional knowledge about the state.

This reminds me, a fun game if you are on a car trip with another person is to have them open up the atlas and quiz you about state facts. Most of the thing you will not know (or at least I do not) but it is fun to try to guess to see how close you can come to the population of the state, or if you can guess its biggest city, etc… Anyhow it passes the time =)

I would assume that you can’t just bombard a child with a whole bunch of facts and figures right away. State memorization followed by their capitals are the building blocks of American Geography. From there you learn about mountain ranges, lakes and rivers, monuments, and then history… or whatever.

Much like, when you’re in 5th grade, you begin learning the periodic chart. You don’t really have a use then. Why is it so important for an 11 year old to know that Mg is Magnesium and Mn is Manganese? But it plays an important role in understanding how our world works, later.

Well, at least that’s the way I look at it.

I remember in grade school we were told to learn state flowers, birds, and what not. California is the sunshine state… or was it Florida? Who the hell cares? I don’t live there! It seemed a bit excessive then. Maybe they were trying to trick us into learning by luring us with pretty birds and flowers.

I’ve always wondered why memorizing state capitals, presidents, or any list of information is chosen as a focused memorization task. As an educator and homeschooling mom, I prefer to have my children memorize poetry, scripture, famous quotes, etc. We still work on memorizing those lists, but only when my kids are receptive and think of it as a fun and challenging “game.” We use maps a lot and learn the locations of states (and their capitals) and many countries of the world. We try to visit places we read about — and we do a lot of reading. What will stick is probably more likely to be useful information.

Who discovered america, capitals, & everything else you learn is not the point (it will only help you on a game show) but showing you can recall the information at a later time (during a quiz/test) is the goal they are after.

What if you get stopped by Jay Leno in his Jay walking segment and he asks you what is the capital of New York. What are you going to say New York City? HAHAHA.

But undestand it’s a running joke. Howard Sterns asks girls what the Capital of New York is and they say New Jersey.

So it’s a big running joke.

I’m in favor of it, along with WHAT YOU SAID TOO

You do need to know WHERE the state is, WHAT the largest cities are, what the MAJOR rivers are and what major LAKES are found there.

That’s all GEOGRAPHY

Believe it or not the AVERAGE person in the US gets only about 25% of WORLD NATION AND STATE geography correct.

Go get a MAP or Europe and see if you can point out where LITHUANIA or ESTONIA or CROATIA is!

Italy is easy.

Belgim is not.

in all, i just want to thank you very much for understanding. even when we’re not from the same system.