Two times two is four

This week, in the Spanish media there has been a lot about Miguel Ángel Blanco, a local politician in the Basque country who was abducted and murdered by ETA, the Basque terrorist group. Miguel died in July 1997 so this is the 25th anniversary. As always with things ETA related or to do with the victims of terror there has been controversy. Basically some people say that the political party Bildu, which operates in the Basque Country, and is a sometimes ally of the present socialist government, is the direct successor to the ETA terrorist group. Others say that making that association is as unrealistic as following the trail of the very mainstream Partido Popular back to some hypothetical Francoist roots. I wonder if there is some sort of rule about how long has to pass before groups, people, finally lay old antagonisms to rest, acknowledge the damage and move forward. I understand the Catalans are still upset by a battle in the War of Succession that took place in 1714 but Coventrians seem to have forgiven the Luftwaffe just as Dresdeners seem to have forgiven the RAF even if the evil intent and horror of those two bombing raids isn't forgotten.

Anyway, Miguel Ángel Blanco's death caused huge upheaval at the time - there was an anti terrorist demonstration in Madrid with at least one and a half million protestors. Lots of the Spanish media have been doing that thing where they go into the streets and ask young people if they know who Miguel Ángel was. The broad result is that 60% of young people don't have a clue about him. I didn't quite see how that was relevant or interesting. If you were to ask me who the US president was in 1997 or the French President or even the UK Prime Minister it would be guessing rather than knowing (Clinton, Chirac, Major and Blair). Time dulls lots of stories and if someone wasn't even born when Clinton, Chirac, Major and Blair were important then it's just another fact. And what is the atomic weight of caesium by the way?

I heard on the radio this week that the questions most usually failed on the theory part of the Spanish driving test theory part are to do with speed limits. I instantly thought "Ah, ah, I know this - defaults are 30 in town, 90 on open roads and 120 on motorways". The answer was 25. That's because the question was what is the maximum legal speed for a tractor towing a trailer; basically a trick question. What use is that to a new driver? If you drive a tractor and trailer you'll know the speed limit for your rig. If you drive a car the speed limit for a tractor is of nothing but academic interest. I remember that a favourite question on the British driving test of my youth was about braking distances. Having some idea of braking distances is also a bit of rote learning but the difference, at least as far as I see it, is that it demonstrates something practical about actual driving. Go faster and it takes exponentially, or is it geometrically, longer to stop.

Lots of news stories are good space fillers. January sales, Christmas lottery, heatwaves. Every time the traffic law changes the media use it as an excuse for doing a vox pop about driving rules. "How many points do you lose and how much you have to pay for breaking certain speed limits?", is a favourite. Some people know, most have some vague idea and lots don't have a clue. If you think about it it's a completely senseless question. Do you know what the sanctions are for running away from a bar without paying or for blackmail, ransom and murder? Most people don't because most people aren't police officers, lawyers, runners away from bars, kidnappers, extortionists or murderers. We all know that there is some sort of penalty if you do them and get caught. It's the same with a speeding. The detail means nothing. Don't contravene the rule and you'll never know the sanction.

It often seems to me that Spaniards are systematically weaned on useless information. There seems to be a tradition of crowding out useful things with the banal and obscure. Things that, should you ever need to know, you could just look up. It's the same process that means the letter you get from the tax people (or the doctor or the employment service) gives more precedence to the applicable legislation, the process and other verbiage than the key information which will take up one very subsidiary paragraph at best. 

Someone told me about the carpentry course they were doing. They studied the properties of different types of wood, they did a lot on tools, they even did the history of furniture but they didn't get onto making anything, in wood, until the last couple of months of the course. Each new Government introduces new education legislation which means that my information about school syllabuses may well be out of date but, in 2009, it was still a Spanish junior school thing to have everyone learn all the bones of the body. I often wondered why. It may have been more useful to show the youngsters how to search for such information - the generally applicable instead of the possibly irrelevant specific. A few  years ago there was furore because a Spanish A level type exam asked questions about some arcane mathematics. It's true that the particular equation or whatever was on the syllabus but it hadn't come up for years and, because the syllabus was so extensive, so unteachable, none of the teachers had introduced the topic to their students. Almost none of the students were able to answer the questions. I'm sure the examiners were high fiving each other left right and centre. Very comparable, in my estimation, to asking about the speed of a tractor. Here's one to catch them out. Spanish exams and tests are loaded with trick questions. 

I've asked Spaniards why they do this sort of thing and, as often as not, they seem to think the question is a bit silly.  They are inured to learning by rote and to anticipating trick questions. Learning seems so often to be equated with memory.