The Humble Paper Clip
April 18, 2024 – Greenwich, Connecticut, USA
Suzanne Mitchell’s original intent for Throwback Thursdays was a fun way to teach her 3rd grade class about recently obsoleted technologies. She visited thrift stores and found all kinds of forgotten gadgets on the bargain shelves. When Mrs. Mitchell brought in a stack of cassette tapes and a boombox, a handful of students thought they knew how the funny plastic cartridges worked. The consensus was that the tapes and boombox were at least 200 years old. The children thought their teacher must have borrowed them from a museum.
Mrs. Mitchell plugged the ancient relic into a classroom power outlet and demonstrated how the buttons worked. When music and sound came out, the class acted like a mummy had risen from the dead.
“It still works?” shouted several students.
One puzzled girl asked, “It uses the same kind of electricity that we use today?
This was Mrs. Mitchell’s first class as a full-time teacher and she loved seeing the wonder in her 3rd graders’ eyes. She repeated the same baffling demonstration with CDs and a CD player. Then she had the brilliant idea to let her students brainstorm about how other devices worked before she provided an explanation. She encouraged the boys and girls who might have seen the old-fashioned equipment in action to let the others share ideas before jumping in with an answer.
After conducting a few Throwback Thursday brainstorms, Mrs. Mitchell raved about them to Ms. Kimball, a young colleague down the hall. “You know how you were saying these kids have a hard time being creative? You should have watched them decipher what a hot-air popcorn popper is for.”
“None of them had ever seen one?”
“No. They’re used to getting popcorn from a bag in a microwave.”
“So what did they think of the hot-air popper?”
“They had lots of funny guesses for what it did – a pet shower, an ice cream dispenser. When I turned it on, they started guessing things like a hand warmer or a hair dryer. They couldn’t believe making popcorn used to be so hard.”
For the next week’s Throwback Thursday, Mrs. Mitchell brought in a telescoping radio antenna that was once attached to a car. Her class had all kinds of creative ideas for how it might be used.
“It tells you what direction to go. It’s called, um, a compass!” one boy shouted.
“Not quite,” Mrs. Mitchell replied.
“Is it a metal stick for hitting kids? They used to do that in school.”
“No, it’s not for hitting anyone.”
After more guesses involving rulers, back scratchers, and clothes hangers, Mrs. Mitchell explained that the antenna connected to a radio. Then she tried to explain radios and radio waves. With each new object she brought in, she realized her class was not only unfamiliar with older technology, third graders were mystified by simple tools that were once commonplace when people made their own repairs.
The Throwback Thursday that featured screwdrivers had students guessing they were weapons, paint stirrers, or used to poke holes in lawns. Mrs. Mitchell showed her class a piece of wood containing half-inserted screws and let them twist them in and out using the screwdrivers. Suddenly, boys and girls spotted screws holding their desks together and on the cabinet doors which were attached to one of the classroom walls. Their teacher had to confiscate the screwdrivers before all the classroom furniture was disassembled.
Mrs. Mitchell eventually stopped picking up Throwback Thursday items from thrift stores and hardware stores and found a treasure trove of possibilities in the school’s supply closet next to the principal’s office. She recruited Ms. Kimball to help with the search. After uncovering dusty printers and copiers, they took a long look at the paper supply shelves.
“You know, we’ve got the kids doing so much online and with their Chromebooks, they don’t see a lot of paper anymore,” Mrs. Mitchell said thoughtfully. “Mostly when we’re doing art projects.”
“You think they’ll have a hard time figuring out how paper works?” Ms. Kimball asked.
“Not the paper. But all the stuff that goes with it. Check this out.” Mrs. Mitchell grabbed a paper cutter and moved the heavy handle like she was chopping wood. “I can only imagine what they’ll think this is for.”
“Maybe cutting off fingers or slicing phones in half.”
“And look at all these binders and stamps with ink pads. I’d love to have them wonder about ink pads.”
“How about these?” Ms. Kimball asked, holding up a box of paper clips.
“Huh. I think they’ve used staples before, but I doubt they’ve seen a lot of paper clips.”
“Seriously? I’d be very surprised if they don’t know how a paper clip works.”
“I could try them and see. I’m curious myself. I like the simplicity of it. Just a bent metal wire.” Mrs. Mitchell grabbed three full boxes. “Let’s test if the paper clip has survived the great generation gap.”
On the Thursday in April when Mrs. Mitchell introduced the paper clips, she first separated her twenty students into groups of two and reminded them they would be working with a partner. Then she dropped a pile of paper clips on every desk without saying what they were called.
“Anyone seen these before?”
No one raised their hand. Then an expensively dressed boy named Michael blurted out, “Is this metal?”
“Yes, each of these little things is made from metal. But what are they for? I want you to study them and figure it out. Talk only to your partner.”
A girl in pigtails named Jane could not help raising her hand and calling out, “I know! It’s money! People used to use it to buy things.”
The excitement level in the room climbed like a rocket. People shouted, “I want some more!” and “What can I buy with these?”
Mrs. Mitchell calmly waved her arms to catch the class’s attention. “These aren’t money, but that was a good idea, Jane. From now on, please whisper to your partner and come up with some more ideas for how we might use these strange pieces of metal.”
Student pairs huddled together, stacking and bending the paper clips. Mrs. Mitchell chuckled to herself as she watched their intensity. They approached the problem as if they were studying a crime scene or uncovering an exotic fossil.
A group of boys attached the paper clips together to make a chain. They whispered excitedly that the metal links were simply used to construct something like a long snake. The group next to them watched and then built their own chain. An argument broke out over who had the idea first.
“Okay, let’s not get upset,” Mrs. Mitchell interjected. “But I want everyone to come up with their own ideas.”
“Did we figure it out? Is it supposed to make a snake?” one of the boys whispered to Mrs. Mitchell.
“That’s not what they were originally for. But snake making is still a good idea,” Mrs. Mitchell whispered in return.
Two girls, Marta and Caroline, waived for Mrs. Mitchell’s attention. When she strolled to their desks, they had paper clips stuck in their hair. “We got it,” Marta whispered excitedly. “They’re for hair.” Other students around them were already adding paper clips to their own hair.
“Not quite how they were intended,” Mrs. Mitchell said. “But you could use them that way.”
Across the room, other student pairs were unbending and reshaping the paper clips to resemble tiny action figures. Mrs. Mitchell let everyone brainstorm for a few more minutes.
“I love seeing your creativity,” she announced to the class. “Before I tell you what these things are called and what people originally used them for, let me give you a little hint.” She produced a stack of paper and handed multiple sheets to each group. “So originally, your metal objects were used to connect papers together.”
Students got to work studying the paper and paper clips. Some of them unbent the paper clips and used one end to poke a hole through the sheets of paper. Then they fished their metal wire through the holes and bent it back into a circle, forming a ring. Others folded the papers into a tube and bent paper clip wires around the tube to keep it from unfolding. A few children slid the paper clips onto the stack of papers the way they were originally intended to function.
Mrs. Mitchell held up an example. “See, this is how they were designed to work. And they’re called paper clips.”
The rest of the class enthusiastically slid their paper clips onto their paper sheets. Then they went back to bending them into spiny metal creatures and putting them in their hair.
Jamie, a curly redhead, summed things up best when he said, “I love paper clips! They’re great for all kinds of stuff.”
Mrs. Mitchell smiled and shrugged her shoulders as she concluded paper clips would survive into the future for one reason or another. She walked to her desk drawer and pulled out something for next week’s Throwback Thursday. She held up a hole punch and said, “Here’s a little preview for next time.”
Jaws dropped around the room with innocent anticipation.
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