“Can I borrow an eraser, Mrs. Hawke?” one of my eleventh-graders asked me one day.
“Um, why do you need an eraser?” I respond, before walking over to check out his writing apparatus.
Then, once I locate it (which is not easy, since it’s virtually hidden under his hand when he’s in writing position), it’s perfectly clear why he’s in dire need of an eraser! His pencil is so small that he can barely hold it in his hand to write. That eraser was probably used up two inches ago!
Okay, so it’s probably not the smallest pencil every, but it is most certainly the smallest pencil I’ve ever seen a student try to use in class (although my son, Ryan, swears up and down that he’s used one smaller…).
It may not be exactly PC, in today’s Green society, to toss out materials before they’re COMPLETELY USELESS, but come on!
I know my hand would cramp up like crazy if I tried to hold onto that twig of a pencil. (And, no, it’s not arthritis; I’m not that old! :P) And do you really want to have to dig around for erasers??
Time to toss this baby!
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Most of my teaching resources are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License, which means you can feel free to use them with attribution as long as you don’t use them commercially. If you’re not sure, don’t hesitate to ask me. Unfortunately, I am currently unable to send out my tests and quizzes, but I am hoping to establish a less time-consuming alternative for this in the near future. Sorry!!
