Carolyn Explains it All: Pencils, staplers and highlighters, oh my!

With finals week just around the corner, I’ve been spending an unfortunate portion of my… With finals week just around the corner, I’ve been spending an unfortunate portion of my precious time sitting at my desk. You might think I’ve been studying, but you’d be wrong. I’ve been composing odes to my school supplies.

Turns out I really love school supplies. Since maybe the sixth grade, when my mom finally let me come with her to Office Depot and pick out packs of shiny notebooks and sharpened pencils myself, I’ve always had a passion for roaming the aisles and buying school supplies. But there was this disappointment that always hung over my head once I got home – now I had to use them. I had to do work (or what an 11-year-old likes to consider “work”).

I’ve realized recently, though, that school supplies still possess a certain excitement, even once home from the store. I think it’s no exaggeration to state that we would be nowhere without our school supplies. School supplies convince us that we are intelligent, successful people even when we’re really not. Let me explain.

Let’s start with the highlighter.

Many teachers and other such smart people will argue that the highlighter is the most useless school supply ever created. Students gleefully highlight line after line of readings. Textbooks practically become coloring books! And is education supposed to be fun? No!

Trying to actually study with a highlighter in hand is a bad idea, I’ve heard, because one thinks she’s absorbing the information when actually, she’s merely making lively marks on a piece of paper (while probably not even completely paying attention). To truly learn, one must read the passage and copy the important information by hand onto another piece of paper.

These people are forgetting, though, that the highlighter might not be a great study tool – but it’s absolutely fabulous for boosting self-esteem. How good do you feel about yourself after highlighting 50 pages in “A History of Mankind?”

You’re not tired, because you haven’t actually been learning. Yet you don’t feel guilty, because you just busted through 50 pages of “A History of Mankind.” So productive! And I think we can all agree that confidence-building is a huge part of the college experience. Check!

The next school supply on our list is the stapler.

Stapling an assignment is another sense of accomplishment that comes from doing actual very little work at all. When I finish a 10-page paper, I am cranky and exhausted. I really kind of want to hurt somebody. But once I print it, haul my massive purple-and-black stapler out of my drawer, and staple those pages together, I am suddenly, overwhelmingly proud of myself. I’m suddenly thinking, “Gosh, it feels good to get this done” instead of “Why was this assigned in the first place?!” It’s thrilling.

Stapling organizes. It brings structure to life. Is that not another purpose of college?

Check.

Now we’ve arrived at my favorite school supply: the sticky note. Personally, I’m obsessed. Post-It notes are finals week’s best friend. They allow one to write down, in big capital letters (maybe even with a colorful Sharpie): “finish philosophy paper,” “make flashcards for Spanish,” and “remove Saran wrap from math textbook.” This frees the student to go procrastinate for a couple more days.

No need to do the work when I can remind myself to do it later.

This fosters a sense of reliability. Even if it’s just reliability to get it done myself later, I think it still counts.

Last, but not least, we have writing utensils. Whether it be pens or pencils – or the best and worst invention ever, erasable pens – this school supply makes the bottom of the list because it’s pretty much necessary to do work while using it.

The pen and pencil are still important to my argument, though, because the sole excitement of purchasing them brings such enthusiasm about education – more so than any of the other supplies. Seriously.

Like I said, they’re no fun once actually put in action. But when I’m standing in the drugstore or book center, or in front of that overstuffed coffee mug on my parents’ desk, perusing for new tools of learning, I feel like a true American. So many choices. So much freedom. Life is beautiful.

And I probably don’t have to point out that, obviously, college is supposed to make a student enthusiastic about education.

Without school supplies, we would view all these hours spent studying as a frustrating waste of time.

Thanks to them, though, we know that the more hours we spend at our desks, the more we grow as individuals.

E-mail Carolyn about your favorite school supply at ceg36@pitt.edu.