School rubbers are work of ‘the devil’

They make pupils feel shame, claims academic

THERE are few more innocent images than a child scribbling with a pencil. But an academic has warned that rubbers are an ‘instrument of the devil’ and should be banned f rom classrooms.

King’s College visiting professor Guy Claxton said erasers wrongly encourage children to feel ashamed of mistakes.

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

‘The eraser is an instrument of the devil because it perpetuates a culture of shame about error,’ Professor Claxton said.

‘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.

‘Instead, 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, not being in thrall to getting the right answer quickly and looking smart.

‘They need to be interested in the process of getting the right answer because that’s what it is like in the big wide world.’

He added: ‘Ban the eraser, get a big road sign with an eraser and put a big, red bar across it and get kids to say you don’t scrub out your mistakes, highlight them because mistakes are your friends, they are your teachers.

‘Out in the big wide world nobody is going to be following you around, marking your work, organising your time for you – in the 21st century you are going to be the designer, the architect, the curator of your own learning.’ Professor Claxton referred to US research by author Paul Tough showing that both resilience and curiosity help pupils to do better in exams as well as in life.

‘School should not be just a place for getting right answers to pass tests, it should be a real preparation for all kids to embark on life,’ Professor Claxton said.

Politicians, education experts and business l eaders have made repeated recent calls for young people to be taught skills that cannot be measured by exams, such as grit.

There is concern that children are failing to develop their ‘ moral character’ as it is squeezed out of modern education by exam pressure. Both major UK political parties backed the need for character education in recent months, arguing that teachers need to be empowered to develop ‘the whole child’.

Westminster Education Secretary Nicky Morgan has previously suggested that learning traits such as perseverance and confidence are ‘equally important’ to teenagers as gaining good exam results.

She announced a £5million grant last December to fund schools to help to develop pupils’ characters and instil them with values of self-confidence, respect and leadership.

The i nitiative would turn England into a ‘global leader in teaching character and resilience’, the minister said.

In a study by Birmingham University, researchers found that eight i n ten teachers thought their school’s focus on academic achievement hindered the development of pupil’s characters.

‘Mistakes are your friends’