That sort of stuff was more common in France. One teacher had us memorize (among other things) this really long poem on liberty, something like 6 or 7 pages written in our medium sized paper notebooks.
Very dry stuff most of the time..
In Toronto, that teacher would dig up anything and everything, basicaly. The same way they teach you explicitely, in adult engineering courses, to think outside the box, boil down problems to their simplest mechanic, yadda yadda, he was inducing us into doing it instinctively, basic street smarts sharpened with as much discipline as he could while keeping it simple and fun.
It was anything from folklore riddles or more sophisticated stuff like that Einstein riddle (not that one specificaly, but that sort of syntax), to finding obvious flaws in newspaper articles, to playing that game where small groups had to find matched pairs of cards (turned upside down) with only one try allowed at a time.. There weren't any strict rules as long as we made an effort to tackle harder problems or find new solutions.
It was flexing our mental muscle, never limiting it to a single approach or context or type of problem/solution.. he'd walk around and talk really casually, and most of the time there was a hint or part of the solution hidden in some off topic comment.
Other teachers had other ways, like book reading and comprehension competitions. I remember that came down to me and this ubersnob chick, and I won it for the prankster team.. at something like 2.5 books a day for a week.
But that one teacher's problem solving games were the best.
