It's been a good week for ...

mistakes

You might have thought it was just a humble item of classroom equipment, but it turns out the rubber is an "instrument of the devil" and should be banned from schools because rubbing out encourages children to feel ashamed about mistakes

So says cognitive scientist Professor Guy Claxton, whose name is a curious but perhaps apt mix of printing press and loud horn. He adds that schools should encourage students to acknowledge their errors because that's the way the "big wide world" works.

"The eraser is an instrument of the devil," said Claxton, "because it perpetuates a culture of shame about error. 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." In learning terms, he says, "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".

In the 21st century, you are also be the designer, architect and creator of a potential litany of digitally disseminated errors of judgement on social media, and there's no going back with a rubber on them.

So maybe Professor Claxton has a point.

It seems the world of stationery never stands still.

It's been a bad week for ... playgrounds

Campaigners and parents have criticised an Argyll primary school for naming two new sports courts after nuclear submarines.

Cardross Primary School received more than £3,000 from the Armed Forces Covenant Community Grant Scheme of the Royal Navy for work on the school playground. The money funded four new sports courts. All were given titles with naval connections, including Repulse and Vanguard, which are types of nuclear submarine.

The names have upset some parents, who say that it's not appropriate for a playground to be named after a weapon of mass destruction.

But hey, mistakes are your friends, they are your teachers. Did someone mention instruments of the devil?