Erasures are NEVER Wrong

How many of us have encountered this instruction in the test papers and have overlooked it. Or maybe it was just some clumsy mistake due to confusing numbering on the test papers and inconsistent with our answer sheets that we made an irrevocable mistake which we attribute to our being careless or sometimes even "palpak" way of doing things.

It hurts to see this instruction in test papers

ERASURES ARE WRONG.

First of all, what is the objective of this instruction? Some say that it is to lessen cheating in the classroom.

But wait, isn't that the responsibility of the teacher? Getting rid of cheating is part of classroom management. If the teacher is not lazy to watch over the students as they take test, then they won't have a chance to cheat right? No matter how creative students are, teachers should be more creative than them.

If you have a class which you know are used to the habit of cheating, then make two tests which fulfills the same objectives. Set A, Set B. You can even make Set C if you want.

Putting the instruction "ERASURES ARE WRONG" is a big big mistake.

How can you take the right of the student to change his answer, to change his mind, to correct the incorrect. Is this not part of life? It is human nature to want to correct mistakes we've done. Don't do this to your students.

Take action, strive to be heard.