14 DAY TRIAL // You know those pieces of soft rubber that kids in school use to rub out some of the things they write? To laypeople, they're called erasers. To Guy Claxton, a visiting professor at King's College London, however, they're something very different.
They're a tool of sorts for the evil forces that are at play in this world that we live in. An “instrument of the devil,” the visiting professor's exact description of erasers was.
Don't bring out the holy water just yet
Before you label Guy Claxton a complete madman, you should know that he was only speaking metaphorically. So, no, he doesn't really think that all erasers are somehow cursed or that they could open the gates of hell.
He is, however, deeply convinced that erasers have no place in classrooms. They distract students and make them feel as if they have to hide their mistakes from their peers and even their teachers.
This is not normal and can only have negative effects on a child's development. Therefore, it perfect makes sense to forever ban the use of erasers in classrooms, professor Guy Claxton insists.
“It’s a way of lying to the world, which says, ‘I didn’t make a mistake. I got it right first time.’ That’s what happens when you can rub it out and replace it,” he explained in an interview, as cited by Mirror.
Furthermore, “We need a culture where children are not afraid to make mistakes, they look at their mistakes and they learn from them, where they are continuously reflecting and improving on what they’ve done.”
In not so many words, letting kids use erasers means failing to prepare them for the real world and not helping them grow accustomed to the idea that we all have to live with the consequences of the mistakes we make.
English engineer Edward Nairne, said to have invented rubber erasers back in 1770, only saw the practical side of these articles of stationery: quickly fixing boo-boos made in writing.
Some teachers agree with Guy Claxton
Interestingly, Guy Claxton isn't the only one who thinks erasers should be banned in the classroom. On the contrary, quite a lot of teachers agree with him.
They say that the mistakes students make are an indicator of what's going on inside their little heads and that, with erasers out of the picture, teachers could more easily figure out which students need help and pay close attention to their work.