Ripping out the Centerfold

Ever since ancient Egypt's invention of papyrus, paper has been human kind's one main way of recording history. Paper has been the literal "middleman" for nearly all recorded technology in existence.  It is a part of our everyday life to the extent that we may not even notice it is there: our homework, our classwork, our books, our mail, our everything!  Believe it or not, 700 pounds of paper are consumed by the average American each year. After thousands of years, our medium for recording, communicating, testing, and working is still, plain, old, paper.

From living in very luscious, green suburbs, it's pretty hard to believe trees are suffering from this nationwide paper standard. Sure, there is Green Day, there are recycling bins, and we have this general thought that not using a full page is a waste, but does this really affect our lives? Surprisingly, it does! The world won't end if you decide not to reuse paper or if teachers have curriculums with wordy textbooks. But it is because of this pileup of paper that we end up with backpacks, lockers, and folders filled to the brim with a huge mess of papers and books. In addition, schools need to build entire book rooms devoted holding grade sets of books. What happens when the curriculum changes, and the fifty book set isn't needed anymore? Where do they go? Nowhere, they just pile-up.

I am proposing we get rid of the paper standard, and switch to using tablets at the Center for Global Studies.   Every CGS class needs paper for note taking, classwork, character practice, or testing. Tablets are capable of all of paper's writable functions in a more compact, organized form. I'm not saying to never use paper ever again, but it would be beneficial to our school, and us students if we were to replace paper with this electronic alternative.

The Center for Global Studies should be paper-free and give every student a tablet so that then every student can have organized notes, books, and worksheets handy for class.