The Most Important Thing in Your Pencil Case, or Calculators Ain't Bad

I have a friend who's starting secondary school in September. Her mum sent me this:

I need your opinion on something. B████ is laughing at me because I said that choosing a new pencil case is THE MOST IMPORTANT thing about a new school year. I messaged my English dept, but she said they’re bound to agree and I needed to message a Maths teacher. Thoughts?

I responded with:

Teaching to the Void

Following a conversation sparked by one of their training events GEM, the professional network for people interested in learning through museums and heritage, asked me to write a guest post loosely based upon (and an expansion of) the ideas in this post. It's here:

    Teaching to the Void at GEM.org.uk