Sharp Pencils

There is no mistaking the “Back-to-School” anticipation. Retailers see money signs.   Students see chances to be with friends. Teachers see new challenges. We all see potential.

All school supplies have potential. What will transform them into something different than what they are? What is the unknown activity yet to be begun? Yet to be imagined? What will fill the mind that fills the paper, that fills the space, that fills the time that is yet to come?

I appreciate the modern mechanical pencil. I also appreciate double sticky tape. They both seem to have redeeming qualities over their predecessors, especially when it comes to reducing messes. But I think these predecessors, wooden pencils and glue, have a quality that is lost in these newer tools. When in the bottle, school glue is a white liquid. Dispensed, it is runny and messy. It also takes time for the glue to accomplish its task. 

There is a similar magic in unsharpened pencils. It is the potential of recording thoughts: marks on a surface that weren’t there before. This cannot begin, however, until the wood around the tip of the pencil is chipped away, revealing the graphite core. When exposed on all sides, it insures unobstructed contact with the writing surface. Until it is sharpened, the graphite is locked inside, inaccessible. The graphite has to be exposed and sharpened for its effect to potentially change the world. Some of the wood is lost in this process, but wood cannot make a mark, so it must be shaved away. Only the gray center can change the blank paper into a powerful document. Education shapes students. No longer do we believe that teachers write on a blank slate which is another person’s mind.

In what condition do you find the tools you are using? Are they grinding away potential? Should the tools be tossed out or will students be tossed out like ruined pencils? Should we keep using intimidation? Guilt? Denial? Suspicion? Doubt? Teachers find better tools. And, by the way, neither a curriculum nor a computer is a sharpener.*

How do you invest in high quality sharpeners? Your interactions with your students are the only sharpeners you have. Take good care of the potential they have entrusted to you. Make thoughtful decisions about the tools you use. In addition to bulletin boards and seating charts, make plans to nurture potential by creating an inclusive classroom atmosphere, establishing attitudes of mutual trust, and presenting positive expectations. Decide what elements you will allow to be the rule of the day for you and your students. Protect them. Trust them. Listen to them. A blunt cut, roughly and randomly aimed at those softer outer shields that protect the valuable center of the pencils, can waste, break, or damage student potential. Give them the best chance at rewriting their world. One mark at a time, for all the time they have.

*For the metaphor about curriculum, come back for the next issue.