A matter of facts

Note : All Viralelt posts share the same structure. Teacher’s notes appear only on How to use Viralelt. This is done to keep “teacher text” to a minimum and avoid repetition.

Ask your students whether they know the answers to these questions.


Show them the video. 

1. Does it surprise you that the students in the video seemed to know so little about their own country?
2. Do you think the girl at 01:53 was right to feel embarrassed and “stupid”? Should ignorance of certain things be the cause of embarrassment? 
3. Why do you think these students have committed to memory facts about Brad Pitt, but not facts about American history or politics?
4. Some people think that in the era of the Internet, it’s not really necessary to learn facts. What do you think they mean? Do you agree?
5. The well-known educational consultant Sir Ken Robinson argues that too much emphasis on learning facts at school stifles children’s innate creativity. What is your opinion of the way children are taught at school?
6. Our brains have limited storage capacity. Are some facts more important to learn than others? What sort of facts should we be expected to learn?
7. Do you ever feel that you don’t know enough about a particular topic? Can you think of something that you would like to know more about?
8. Do you consider yourself to be a knowledgeable and cultured person?
9. Have you heard the saying: “Jack of all trades, master of none”? Is it better to know a lot about a specific subject or to have superficial knowledge on a wide range of subjects?
10. What is your opinion of these two common expressions: “Ignorance is bliss” and “Knowledge is power”?

Which three of the above questions are Kath (00:00), Tyson (00:40) and Ian (01:44) talking about?

Download “Question time” and the “Sitting comfortably?” script in an editable Word document here.

My thanks to Katherine Bilsborough and Tyson Seburn for kindly lending their opinions and voices to “Sitting comfortably?”. 🙂 

A mingling activity

a) Ask your students to write 5 general knowledge questions, the answers to which they think their fellow classmates should know. Do not allow them to consult the internet while they are coming up with questions. Make it a condition that they know the answers to their own questions. 

b) Tell your students to move around the classroom and interview as many of their classmates as they can. They should take notes on which questions caused the most and least difficulty.

c) Ask your students to report their findings in front of the class or in small groups.

A further video

You might like to ask your students to watch Sir Ken Robinson‘s controversial TED talk “Do schools kill creativity” for homework.

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