It’s Dumb but It Works: Naming Your Pencils

Dear colleague,

Last year I was fortunate to make a number of mini-PD visits to Hamilton Public Schools here in Michigan. For each two-hour session, we examined a single strategy from what I call the minimalist approach to The Will to Learn.

During one of the sessions, a pair of colleagues were laughing about an idea one of them had learned on TikTok: to keep students from borrowing pencils and never returning them, you paste the pencils on your whiteboard and give them names.

It was during the difficult winter months of the school year, so with a chuckle I decided, “Why not?” I didn't make a big deal of it — I just ordered the little Amazon pencil-holder thingies and posted three pencils on the whiteboard with names next to them.

The next day, a student asked me for a pencil. I simply said, “Who would you like?” The student looked at my quizzically and selected John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt. I said, “Great choice. I expect John back home at the end of class.”

For whatever reason, the strategy worked in at least two ways:

1. Fewer students asked me for a writing utensil (with no noticeable lack of students having writing utensils during class), and
2. Those who did borrow one returned it about 95% of the time. I can only think of two instances during the remainder of the school year in which I had to do a missing persons investigation on the pencil. This was exponentially different than semester one's pencil cup that I had to refill two to three times per month.

And of course, it was fun. We got some good chuckles.

So to those two colleagues at Hamilton, I say one word: respect.

Barely maintaining my sanity right beside you,

DSJR

PS In a classic case of jinxing, this week we lost several pencils in my class. Here is the updated board: