I was just helping out in my child's class yesterday and this issue came up with several students. Their writing was sloppy at best and when they made a mistake they either just wrote the right answer on top of the wrong one or they barely erased the wrong answer before writing on top of it. As I told them, if the teacher can't read the answer, he/she will mark it wrong whether they actually knew the correct answer or not. It's not just good enough to know the right answer, you have to *show* that you know the right answer. Is that fair? Maybe not. But school, for right or wrong, is in part about jumping through hoops and learning to live within the rules. Of course, this only works for kids who care if their teacher thinks they know the answer . . .
