No Erasures

Five years ago, when I was in sixth grade, my English teacher used to give me low marks in my handwriting assignments and spelling quizzes, because I committed a lot of mistakes and had to use liquid correction tape to cover them up--'erasures'. According to her, once we advance to high school, the teachers there would not allow us any erasures during quizzes, and so we believed her. I, however, found a trick around her rule. Instead of using the correction inks which has that distinct whiter-than-real-paper color that really stands out in the brownish recycled paper our books used, I learned to leave my mistakes as they are. Thankfully, my teacher never noticed them, and I was given good grades again.

When I proceeded to high school, the teachers taught us the same thing: stay away from erasures. But this time they said that college would not allow us to do so. Though there were new exceptions to the rule, that is, when the quizzes were essay-type quizzes, erasures were allowed. We did not have many essay-type quizzes back in grade school, so it was new to us. My papers were always one of the messiest with large blotted parts on the page from crossing out entire paragraphs. I never learned how to write drafts. Not that I needed to!

College came around, and I waited for my teachers to tell us erasures were not allowed. Nothing! Why would  such a rule be implemented when quizzes were mostly in essays or in long calculations? Papers were also required to be computerized. I found it interesting that what my primary and secondary education has taught me prepared me for something that is not practical in higher education, and perhaps also not in real life. In relation to his, I watched a video of a talk by a Sir Ken Robinson about how the educational systems around the world 'kill' creativity. He explains, "And we run our companies like this, by the way, we stigmatize mistakes. And we’re now running national education systems where mistakes are the worst thing you can make." And that by making children afraid of committing mistakes, they would not be given room to grow and find their creative abilities. In my opinion, he made a good point, and I found myself fervently agreeing with him. Now, I even relate this essay about a particular aspect of basic education to his speech.  Erasures are perfectly okay. Mistakes should be allowed to be corrected, but learned from; isn't that what life is all about anyway?


I was filling out a check today which was to pay for our school's tuition fee. My mother particularly told me not to make any mistakes--however minute--or else the check would be deemed invalid. I carefully wrote down in script, "Thirty-Two Thouusand One Hundred Sixty Pesos & 75/xx only". I was pleased with my handwriting. Elegant and neat. I read it again. Oh.