It might have been a staple part of your pencil case when you were at school, but erasers have been dubbed "an instrument of the devil" according to a cognitive scientist.
Guy Claxton, who is a professor at King's College London, said rubbers should be banned from schools because they make children feel ashamed about their mistakes.
Claxton said rather than encouraging pupils to "erase" mistakes, teachers should focus on what children have done wrong, to prepare them for the big wide world.
He told the Telegraph: "The eraser is an instrument of the devil because it perpetuates a culture of shame about error.
"It’s a way of lying to the world, which says ‘I didn’t make a mistake. I got it right first time.’ That’s what happens when you can rub it out and replace it."
According to Claxton, we shouldn't be afraid of making mistakes, we should accept them and improve on them.
Learning shouldn't be just about "right and wrong", but about the process of finding the answer, he argued.
Although his comment is part of the wider debate that suggests school should be less about grades and more about the learning process - perhaps this is taking it a bit too far?
“Ban the eraser, get a big road sign with an eraser and put a big, red bar across it and get kids to say you don’t scrub out your mistakes," he added.
But does the staple pencil case item really need to be removed, and does a rubber really have that much power? We're not too sure...
