Episode 2: Pens or Pencils. Who Cares?

Andy Psarianos

Hi, I'm Andy Psarianos.

Emily Guille-Marrett

Hello, I'm Emily Guille-Marrett.

Adam Gifford

Hi, I'm Adam Gifford.

Andy Psarianos

This is the School of School podcast.

Andy Psarianos

Hi everyone. So, today we're talking on pencils or pens. Who cares? Go on Adam, do you care?

Adam Gifford

I've got a real thing about this. I think pencils, right, for getting ideas down, is wonderful for a couple of reasons. Three reasons, one, they're quite...

Andy Psarianos

You can rub it out?

Adam Gifford

Tactile against the paper, yeah. Two, you can rub them out. In fact, four things. Three, you can accentuate things through shade. So, if you really want to get a point across in your notes, you've got the ability to accentuate that. And then the fourth thing is, there's something quite nice that there's a compulsory pause every time you have to sharpen it. It's a moment of contemplation.

Andy Psarianos

Interesting. I've never thought about this before, I just thought, wow, this might be a fun, silly thing to talk about, but it's pretty serious.

Adam Gifford

It's really serious. There's also a certain romance that I have, you've hit a weak spot for me. There's a number of authors, number of famous authors, Roald Dahl's one, who would only ever use a certain type of pencil, and they can sometimes be really difficult to get. And I think that there's something about a certain type of romance with this is the type of pencil. I know it exists for pens as well, but I think that pencils are generally a wee bit more accessible, because if you've got a single pen, it could be cost-prohibitive. Whereas you can write with the same pencil that Roald Dahl sit and... I was about to say penned, that would be wrong, sit and penciled his books. So, there you go. I've got a real soft spot for pencils. Long may they continue.

Andy Psarianos

What about you, Emily?

Emily Guille-Marrett

Well, I've just gone off on some crazy thought process. So I'm going to go in from the beginning. I'm going to say... In early years, this is a major issue I would say... Pencils, pens, or children even too early, have they got the right ability? Motor skills to be able to hold the pen or a pencil. So, there's that side of things. I love them having those big, chunky pens on boards in the classroom when they're starting to be able to do their mark making. So, I think that there the pen is mightier than the pencil in that situation, and they move through.

Andy Psarianos

So what are you talking about? Writing on whiteboards or?

Emily Guille-Marrett

Yeah.

Andy Psarianos

Or are you talking about writing on paper, or?

Emily Guille-Marrett

On whiteboards, or even if you just had massive ones for mark making on a wall, if it was big chalk pens. Just letting them to express themselves. So in there, I'm like, let's embrace the giant pen.

Adam Gifford

Can I just drop in a top tip? A top teacher tip. I worked in a school once, the budget was very, very low, and I wanted that kind of you just go for it. You write on big things of paper, but purpose-built paper's expensive. So the top tip that I'll give you is, if you find a friendly decorating shop that's got ends of wallpaper rolls, and you can stick them up on your wall, you can always have... There a lot of decorating shops are very kind, and they will give you them for free, and you can roll it down and away you go. So there's my top teaching tip for the day.

Emily Guille-Marrett

That's a great top tip, I love it.

Adam Gifford

Yeah.

Andy Psarianos

Yeah. Yeah.

Emily Guille-Marrett

So let's say we've done all of those. So that's the big pen, but not forcing children to do their handwriting when they're not quite... They haven't developed the fine and gross motor skills to do it. Then you need lots of action, right, nursery rhymes, and all sorts of fun things. Pins, and movements, and things. So let's move on, I digress, then I think there's this point, isn't there, a time in your life... I don't know about you guys, but pencils and pens become very exciting, because you have smelly pens and pencils, ones that have different scents. And I know that in the classroom that can drive teachers is a little bit crazy, because you're saying, can you focus on the work in hand? Not worry about, are you going to have the, I don't know, the jelly smelling-

Andy Psarianos

Bubblegum flavor.

Emily Guille-Marrett

The bubblegum smelling one, or the whatever it... Let's just... So, I can see that there's a time and place, but that's happening. Then you've got me thinking, because oh my gosh, you said pen or pencil. While what about the death of writing in that way? Becoming an art form like calligraphy as we do more and more. And so, at the moment I've noticed at home, I am increasingly not using a pen and pencil around the house for tasks that I would've seen my parents doing.

So a bit like we've talked about before, with that children seeing and understanding purpose. So things like shopping lists, they're done digitally, and things that we used to do. So my big thing, my new year's resolution in 2021 is to try to transfer some of the things that probably look like I don't do them, but have them out and about again. Like the calendar on the wall, not the digital calendar, the shopping list. So I will be having pens and pencils all over the place for next year. So the kids can see the way that writing is just part of our world. It's just something that we do. So there you go. You thought you just came up with some simple pens or pencils, and I've just taken you from early years through to my new year's resolution.

Andy Psarianos

It's like the death of handwriting. So, my handwriting is appalling, but it's because my fingers are like sausages and I'm just not built for delicate work. It's just not the way I'm made, but I was probably one of the last generations in going to school in Canada, in Montreal, where handwriting was really important. It was really an important part of the curriculum, right? And you spent a lot of time learning how to write in different joined up writing, and printing, and letter formations, and all that kinds of stuff. I remember doing a lot of that stuff when I was in primary school, I don't even know if kids do that now.

Emily Guille-Marrett

Mm-hmm.

Andy Psarianos

They certainly don't all around the world, right? I know like for example, in Canada, I'm pretty sure they don't pay very much attention to that. I know in the U.K they probably pay a lot more attention to it.

Emily Guille-Marrett

They do.

Andy Psarianos

And I think when you're looking at things in that context, pencils and pens makes a big difference, right? But nowadays everything's either tapped into a mobile phone with your thumb at ultra lightning speed, or it's typed on a keyboard, that tends to be the trend. There are very few people sit down and actually write on paper, if they do, it's usually scribble little things, right?

Emily Guille-Marrett

And yet in education, I find it such a fascinating thing. We're still expecting even teenagers to be doing a lot of their work handwritten in their testing, and they haven't all necessarily had the amount of practice in their everyday life, yet that's still how we're assessing a lot of their work. That's quite interesting to me.

Adam Gifford

I know a lot of schools where you have to earn your pen, right? And I think to myself... I don't know if there's any research out there, if there is, I've not read it... But there's children who can go years while their classmates are writing away with their pens, but they've not quite graduated to a pen. And I wonder, we talk about the power of the pen. I wonder what that says to those children who, when they sit down to write, they've got a pencil-

Emily Guille-Marrett

This is-

Adam Gifford

As if they've not quite made the cut. And I just, I'm not convinced that that's the best way to motivate people, by saying look what you haven't got.

Emily Guille-Marrett

You're going to upset people on this. That's what this podcast is about. We've got our strong opinions, because there are obviously many schools who are very proud of their pen certificate, and the fact that you do that. But I have to say personally, having seen a child, a friends child crying because they still didn't have their... They even in the school had badges, so they could be seen like, I'm on a pen. But everyone has different-

Adam Gifford

Listen, I've been part of it. I've been part of it. So if anyone knows me, and knows me from the school, I've been part of that process.

Emily Guille-Marrett

Mm-hmm.

Adam Gifford

And I think that when I look back and I reflect on it, and I think what is the point? Is that more important? Because how often do we ask those children, how do you feel about still using a pencil? While you're mate over there's had a pen for two years, how does that make you feel? I'm not sure how often that question gets asked, I'm not sure. Or asking a child, how motivated are you to learn your handwriting? Or is there an issue with your handwriting? Do you find it hard? And if so, should we... I don't know. I just think it's these things in school-

Andy Psarianos

Should we even care, right?

Adam Gifford

Yeah, exactly.

Andy Psarianos

Does it even matter?

Emily Guille-Marrett

I think we should, I think at the beginning when they're doing their phonics, and they're learning about letter sound, and letter shape, then I think they should. Then we're going to get into a whole thing, which is for another time, which is all about do you start them off doing cursive handwriting? Or should that come later when they're doing joined up later on? That's a whole can of worms out there that people feel very strongly about. But I do think it matters that they can write, because they can get ideas down quickly. But I think that children need to see... I love the thing that you said about one of the authors having their favorite pencil. And I think kids should also have a chance to see rough drafts of writer's works, because there is scribbles all over it, It's like the math journaling. I love the fact that the kids can scribble, they can get their ideas down.

And sometimes we... A bit like you were saying, Andy... Spend so much time on it all being so neat and perfect, at making sure that we don't squish out the time for the thinking, and the getting your ideas down, and seeing just how messy. I certainly, if someone opened up my notebook, it's very scribbly, and messy, and bits crossed out, and I think that's a good part of the process. So, and the pen or the pencil in that instance is very, very important.

Andy Psarianos

Yeah. So the paper right, is the key. The paper versus the computer is an equally important question to ask, I think maybe that's a topic on its own. But if you're writing on paper and that, that could include a typewriter as well, there's a different process, right? You have to think before you write, yeah? Because you commit, once you write, you commit, right? It's a pain, but on a word processing device, whether it's a computer, or even a mobile phone or whatever, you can just write messy, come back, edit, rewrite, shuffle around, cut and paste, move around. Really hard to do that with a typewriter, right? Really hard to do that when you're writing ink on paper. So it's an entirely different process, right? Of writing.

Adam Gifford

I'm just thinking about, so we've all been in a position as many people in education have, where we've been to a training, or there's been a number of people, pre pandemic, we're all sitting around in a big room, and we are getting ideas down. There's a disproportionate number of people using pen and paper, or pencil and paper. Even though these people will have access to laptops, they may well have access to tablets, or whatever else. So to me, there's almost a conscious choice to write their ideas down on paper, that's what I see often. So the choice is there, but the next time, I don't know, when the world gets back on its axis, the next time we go to a training and look at that, why is that the choice? Why do people use pens, and pencils, and draw diagrams, and all those sorts of things with that fluidity of mind?

And these are people who are professionals, they're people who work in education. Is that being replicated at school? Well, yeah, in the journals it is. We allow that freedom to explore those ideas, and get it down, diagrammatic, however we want to really. And that's the choice for a lot of people when they go away to be trained professionally, or to listen to something they're interested in. Why? Why is that the choice?

Andy Psarianos

No, it's a good question, and I remember discussing this in a conference in San Francisco in I think it was 1999. Will a computer replace the book? Basically was the premise. Will digital devices get to a level that they can actually replace the book? And one could argue that the resolution on the latest tablets, iPads, or even computer screens and whatever, they're more than ample for reading on screen, right? But people still read books, right. They still read on paper, they still lack that tactile experience. We forget that books are technology too, right. And we've been refining that technology for 400 years, right? And we're gotten pretty damn good at making books, page layout on books is really well understood now, right?

You can go back to... An interesting book to read is Tim Gill's book. Tim Gill was a printer in the U.K, he made fonts as well. So Gill Sans is probably his best known font. So if you read his book, and that point of view, and you realize how much craft there actually is in making a book, we've forgotten all that. We just think, oh, look at all these gizmos, moving things, flashing things on the screen. That's all so new, we don't really understand, we don't really know what the impact that technology is, but books has been refined for 400 years. Kids learn really well from books, we know that, right? That proximity to information, that control, the ability to flip a page, the ease of it, not being distracted by a lot of flashing lights and whatever other gizmos, let's call them around technical devices, hey, it's an interesting topic. So there we go, we've gone from pencils, to pens, to iPads versus books. But I think, yeah, it's an interesting thing. Sometimes we forget about how important those little experiences are, right? And how much of an impact they can have.

Emily Guille-Marrett

And two things, Andy, when you just saying that, that made me think are, one, how the book has suddenly become a bit like with music, has become Ubered. So you've got these massive books now, big format books for children, with people like Jackie Morris. With the lovely lots of words, or various beautiful detailed picture books with proper... Everybody's wants to have all of the lovely pages, and they want to have all the artwork and everything laid out, and considered because we've got a bit fast publishing. We've got so much fast digital, and everybody's starting to want to get little, not just the page number, but they want a folio. Everything's got to be just so again, and I quite like that on the crafting side. And then on the opposite side of the spectrum, as you were saying about iPads. I find it fascinating that they've now got the iPad pen that's been around for a little while now. That's still a pen, isn't it? It's just it's on digital, and we still want to take our notes, and often still do that. So it's interesting.

Andy Psarianos

Thank you for joining us on the School of School podcast.