The capital of Peru...

What is the capital of Peru?

Is it ‘Capital’ or ‘Capitol’? Personally I always err on the ‘a’ side. But it seems that either can be used correctly. Anyway, what is the capital or capitol of Peru? I thought that it was one of those things that every schoolboy would know but…

I may have touched on this before, but what’s happened to education? When I was at school I seemed to have all sorts of facts thrown at me daily and I even managed to absorb some of them. What am I talking about? Well, I was a little dismayed by one young chap recently who when asked what the capital city of Peru was replied: ‘What’s a capital city?’ After having it explained to him, he then went on to ask: ‘Is Peru a country then?’

Even more worrying was that this particular young man went to Grammar School, left with three good ‘A’ levels, and drives around in a BMW.

Actually, thinking about it perhaps that explains it.

Now I don’t purport that learning by rote is a good thing and there really is a huge place in education for creativity and learning through experiencing things, play, and problem solving. But you aren’t going to learn your times tables by being creative and there are some facts that you just have to be told over and over until you remember them.

Of course, education doesn’t begin and end with school. I spent years watching ‘Blue Peter’, ‘Zoo Time’, and ‘How?’ and a lot of my general knowledge was absorbed simply by watching the telly. These days there don’t seem to be many programmes that make any attempt to give an insight into anything other than popular culture and celebrity.

And whilst we are on the subject of celebrity.

Why is it that almost all the quiz shows are now just vehicles for ‘B’ list celebs to make complete fools of themselves by not being able to answer the simplest questions? I’m amazed by their lack of general knowledge, I’m amazed by how much I seem to know in comparison and, whilst I consider myself to be educated, I don’t think that  I’m any more knowledgeable that most of my generation.

There I go playing the old fuddy-duddy card again.

Let’s make it worse.

I’m probably one of the last generation who as children read books from the library, listened to Radio 4, went for walks on our own in the countryside, climbed trees, played games outside in all weathers, were taught things by repeating what we were told over and over, were punished if we were badly behaved or lazy, and had toys that weren’t dependent on electricity to make them work.

Yes, I know that all of that has been said before and is a lot of a cliché.

But at least I know what and where Lima is.