Mechanical Pencils at Service Learning.

It has been brought to my attention recently that mechanical pencils are a big deal. In grammar school, everyone would use mechanical pencils for math and science because they were refillable and came in a variety of colors. I never thought that using them was a luxury or more costly than other writing utensils.

I tutor 6th grade math and I was under the assumption that one should use a pencil when doing math problems. It came to me as a shock when these kids were doing math with red pens, green pens, blue pens and nub-like pencils. So I took out my mechanical pencil to show one kid how to do a problem and he grabbed it out of my hand and started playing with it. He said it was a "fancy pen" and asked me if he could have it. So I gave it to him and soon after everyone wanted one. The next time I went to service learning I brought a pack and gave them each one.

They all bring their purple and green mechanical pencils to tutoring now and are so amazed by them. I never realized that certain school supplies are a luxury to use than others. Something as simple as a pencil can be overlooked. I'm thankful that I never had to do math in red pen and more importantly I'm thankful that the kids are so grateful for little things in life.