The
first thing that comes to mind when we think about technology is computers, the
internet or calculators, but I believe the pencil was one of the if not the
most important pieces of technology to be integrated into the math classroom. This has given our educational society an
easy and cheap way to write. Today this
seems like a given. If you ask students
how they would learn without a writing utensil they would think you are crazy. The pencil was so important to the evolution
of the classroom and specifically math class because practicing exercises is so
important in learning mathematics. Students
are much more likely to succeed if they are able to do practice problems on
their own as opposed to watching the teacher do work on a blackboard.
Pencils
allow students to be assessed, practice on their own, and explore different
ways of solving problems. Imagine how
difficult and time consuming it would be to test student’s knowledge and comprehension
if they did not have pencils and paper.
Each student would have to be interviewed by the teacher to get a simple
understanding of the student’s knowledge.
It is clear that this process would be nearly impossible with the
growing number of students in schools. Sure
this process may have worked hundreds of years ago when a school house
consisted of five to ten students, but today there would need to be a one to
one ratio to assess students.
Today,
students rely so heavily on writing utensils.
It really is important to put your ideas on paper or somewhere that you
can see and reflect them. This is
certainly true in a math class because you need to write your work down. Also, you sometimes need to erase your work
which the pencil allows you to do. People
have been doing this since the beginning of time. We have proof of marks from the ancient Egyptians
which were on this earth thousands of years ago. Now with the invention of the pencil we have
made it easier to write our ideas down. The
best technologies are the ones that make an aspect of life easier. This is why so many of us listed our most
important technology as our smart phones.
They have made reading email, accessing the internet, and talking to
others a two minute process. This is
really what the pencil has done for our society. When the pencil was created we no longer
needed to use feathers and ink. The
pencil gave us an affordable way to advance the ways in which we learn.
This is absolutely an excellent innovation in technology from the feathers and ink previously used. Of course, pens in ink and white have come out since then, but nothing compares to the versatility of a pencil. Sure, pens are permanent, but that is a negative characteristic of the tool; a separate tool (White-out) was made to "get rid of" mistakes made in ink.
ReplyDeleteIn music, it is said that a pencil is the most important tool one can have. Musicians are constantly practicing, rehearsing, and being critiqued on the way they play their instrument or sing in context. Conductors have different interpretations of music than is already written on a piece of music, so conductors are always informing their musicians on how to express ideas they would like in the composer's music. My rehearsal experience has always had me writing notes for myself to catch my mistakes, from my conductor on how to express a phrase or an idea, or things to listen for that are more important than the part that I am playing. I could not imagine my rehearsal experience ever being fruitful without a pencil, one of the most important forms of technology ever invented. Not having a pencil to take down notes is basically like never even having had attended rehearsal at all.
This a great observation, Sean. I would have never thought of a pencil as being a technology, but this blog post has changed my thinking. As a musician, I use pencils all the time. They are convenient, and you can erase any mistakes that you make. Musicians use them generally to mark sheet music, which may be used by another person afterwards, who may not want to use the same fingering, dynamic or other musical marking. Much like math, music is constantly changing, and the pencil leaves room for error.
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