Back in my time at school, we memorized the states and capitals. We played a game in Geography class called "The Map Game" where we divided into 2 teams, and a student from each team went up to a pull down map in the front of the class, and the teacher would call out a geographical location. First one to point it out (sometimes with very aggressive smacks on the map) won. We did this not just for states, but the whole Atlas. We were taught of the original 13 colonies, the westward expansion, and the eventual acquisition of Alaska and Hawaii. It's really not difficult to learn. My sons however are more or less geographically challenged, for the later generations of curriculum deciders removed such classes, and now we have generations that are unable to read a map. Google maps and GPS are great tools, but people should still have a remedial working sense of their country.