Sleep Learning

'We wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas
AND A HAPPY NEW YEEAAAAR!!!'
This, our Christmas song, is read, written, translated, sung hundreds of times during December.

In January: 'How was your holidays?'
'Great, but teacher, my parents asked me to say 'Bom Natal' in English and I didn't know how!
'Did you forget?'
'No.'
'Then?'
'We never learned it!'
'Oh but we did learn it!'
'No we didn't!' They are all adamant.
'Let's try to remember. Let's sing that song: 'We wish you a merry Christmas... ' They sing, faultlessly and with gusto.
'Well?....'
Blank stares.
'What's 'Merry Christmas'?
Hesitantly: 'Bom Natal?'
'See?... you knew it all along!'
'Nooo.'
'What was that then? You just sang it, must have sung it a thousand times before Christmas.'
'But that was just a song...'

At this point a delicious, hallucinogenic paragraph swirls back into memory:

“A small boy asleep … (…) Through a round grating in the side of a box a voice speaks softly.
'The Nile is the longest river in Africa and the second in length of all the rivers of the globe. Although falling short of the Mississippi-Missouri, the Nile is at the head of all rivers as regards the length of its basin...(...)
At breakfast the next morning, 'Tommy', someone says, ' do you know which is the longest river in Africa?' A shaking of the head. 'But don't you remember something that begins: 'The Nile is the...'
'The-Nile-is-the-longest-river-in-Africa-and-the-second-in-length-of-all-the-rivers-of-the-globe...' The words come rushing out. 'Although-falling-short-of...'
'Well now, which is the longest river in Africa?'
The eyes are blank. 'I don't know.'
'But the Nile, Tommy.'
''The-Nile-is-the-longest-river-in-Africa-and-the-second...'
'Then which river is the longest, Tommy?'
Tommy bursts into tears. 'I don't know,' he howls.'
(Aldous Huxley, Brave New World)

So? Are we sleep-teaching? Are the kids sleep-learning? In which case, why bother to get out of bed at all?