Blank Books

In their first lesson of term I issued my Yr 10 class with blank exercise books.  Not just empty ones, but ones with blank pages.  There was consternation!

“Where are the squares?”  they asked. 

I explained that we would be trying this out, that many people find squares hard to write on and that we would review it at the end of the year, but that when they finished their exercise book they would be able to request either a blank or a squared replacement as they wanted.

Most seemed happy with this.  A few people resolved to “write very big” so they would finish the book quickly.  A couple of girls spent the rest of that lesson carefully measuring and ruling out squares to write on!

Things settled down fairly quickly and it has been interesting that three-quarters of the class have requested blank replacement books.  One boy who had a squared book second has finished that already and wanted to return to the blank version.  One of the most vocally anti-blank girls admitted that she now likes having blank pages: “I didn’t like it to start with but now I have got used to it I do.”

So why make the change?

Since time immemorial the maths dept has used books with squares of side ½ cm.  Some pupils can make these work for them, but many are unable to write on legibly on the lines so they scrawl across the page.  While it is sometimes useful to have squares available, it is also sometimes useful to have isometric grids … and we issue these on paper that the pupils stick into their books, so doing the same with squares seems reasonable.

I tried using books with cm squares, particularly for pupils with large handwriting.  Every pupil described them as ‘baby books’ because they stopped using them in KS1.  It seems that “the squares get smaller as the child gets older” is ingrained and an important rite of passage for the pupils.

I don’t like the half-cm-sided squares and using 0.7cm or cm squares is considered ‘babyish’ by pupils, so blank books seemed like a useful alternative.  As a side issue, GCSE exam papers generally have blank spaces for answers.

It is also quite nice to question assumptions that so many people have.  Pupils from different classes, other teachers, and visitors to the lesson are always very surprised to see blank books being used for maths. 

I wonder if there are other things I do just because “we do it that way” but which I really ought to reconsider?