Time to erase erasers? Academic says 'instrument of the devil' should be removed from classrooms

Daily Mail ^ | May 27, 2015 | Harriet Crawford

[rickmichaels]

Erasers are an ‘instrument of the devil’ and should be banned from classrooms, an education expert has warned.

Guy Claxton, visiting professor of learning sciences at King’s College London, said rubbers wrongly encourage children to feel ashamed of their mistakes.

Youngsters need to be unafraid of making errors, to recognise and learn from them, the cognitive scientist added.

‘The eraser is an instrument of the devil because it perpetuates a culture of shame about error,’ he told the Daily Telegraph. ‘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.

[chajin]

Sounds like an eraseophobe, or perhaps someone who is erasist.

[Michael.SF.]

Guy Claxton...said rubbers wrongly encourage children to feel ashamed of their mistakes

Seems to me rubbers have prevented quite a few mistakes over the years.

[rlmorel]

Dang it all, you beat me to it.

[CdMGuy]

This guy is a candidate for the academic s**thead of the day award.

[Do the math]

I make a lot of mistakes, and I use a lot of erasers. One math problem took me over 20 years to solve because of one mistake. I only want to work on problems that are hard, and I don't care if I make some mistakes while solving the problem. So Claxton has a valid point, but banning erasers is stupid.

[TexasRepublic]

Nutjob Liberals should be erased.

[catnipman]

I guess the Backspace and Delete keys on keyboards will soon be removed as well, hey? Oh, and the Cut and Delete functions on ALL programs with editing functions will have to go too. Gonna be REAL hard to turn out correct work on a computer after that, but I guess it’s worth it as I had no idea that every time someone hit the Backspace key we were pleasuring Satan. Live and learn I guess.

[Secret Agent Man]

this teacher is the biggest moron in the world.

[minnesota_bound]

Someone needs to erase this guy.
Where’s Guido?

[onedoug]

We all need to be sloppy like him.

[LonePalm]

Now that's funny right there.

"Ceterum censeo 0bama esse delendam."

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

[discostu]

I would think erasers make you fear error less, since you can erase your mistakes. It’s like the old joke about somebody so smart they do crossword puzzles with a pen.

[a fool in paradise]

Queen Hillary would not be where she is today without erasers, plumbers, and cleanup crews...

[a fool in paradise]

Let’s get rid of the backspace key while we’re at it...

[MeshugeMikey]

without them ...she would have been in prison decades ago!

[a fool in paradise]

Extra large rubbers...

[Billthedrill]

‘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.'

Well, no, it isn't. It means that you have the intelligence to recognize a mistake and the diligence to correct it, both important concepts in pedagogy. An uncritical worship of a child's creativity means a child who never grows up. That is precisely what we are seeing these days and precisely why.

[Gandalf_The_Gray]

If he thinks erasers are evil, I wonder what he thinks of white-out privilege.

He probably get the vapors with the thought of a word processor w/ spell-check, or auto-fill.

Damn Luddite!

Regards,
GtG