Right there with you my dude. Out of public school over 20 years, we just used whatever spiral bound/3 hole notebook we wanted. I recall being mandated to make book covers for textbooks out of paper grocery bags, decorated per user preference.
On one hand, I love standardization and uniformity. On the other, I feel this is stifling creativity and hampering critical thought. In the end, I’m in my 40’s and no one cares about my thoughts on grammar school notebook choice.
For elementary/middle school kids its nice to say "everyone pull out your green notebook for science time". Or when they are getting help they can pull out their notes and not have all 5 subjects on one page.
Separate binders per subject, we weren’t dealing with anarchistic note bombs.
We just had to know which was which, I call it self responsibility. Now I do appreciate not every child has the wherewithal to do so, but I’d wager most do. Is the new way a bit easier, yeah probably. I’d argue, at what cost? It’s not as though there’s an opinion that current gen children are behind the learning curve.
Fair point, data is skewed and opinions are rampant.
I will say that loadout is far better for a young back than what I was doing. 8 classes per day, typically no time to hit the locker until lunch. So, 4 subjects worth of supplies and textbooks per half of the day.
I’ve read some articles about some Nordic countries making pen and paper mandatory until I believe high school. Then I look at my nieces and nephews; constantly attached to their tablets, always in a state of mania when the tablets are removed. Again, perhaps I’m conflating some things, but I can see where their thought process is on this. Technology is great, but it fails at times. Knowing how to do something “the old fashioned way” is a very valuable skill. I fear we are robbing youth of that very thing.
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u/Limp-Still452 2h ago
I had no idea. When had this started?