Learning to Learn

The codex form is highly preferred for how durable and compact it is; yet where did it come from? Well, it didn’t just pop out of nothingness! The earliest form of codex was a wax tablet, which could be bound together at the edges. Since what was being written in was wax, it could be smoothed out and redone if needed, nothing was really permanent. No one gets everything perfect the first time, so it makes sense that the Romans created a way of writing for learning. The instruments and materials they used were not as expensive as an alternative like animal skin. Messing up was just part of the process of learning.

Although the first time I found out about the wax tablets that the Romans used to practice writing, I thought they were incredibly simple and easy to make and use I was terribly proven wrong. My temporarily assigned group found out otherwise soon enough, when we decided to make wax tablets for a class assignment last week (see this page more on the assignment).
Alyssa, Jared, Marc and I met up and headed to Jared’s apartment. We melted the wax and poured it into the wooden frames bought at the craft store. The tablets were starting to come to life!Although we probably should have been doing this earlier, once the wax washardening we started lookingup phrases that we could write in the wax. Once we decided on the sentence we were going to inscribe, I began the carving. I admit it! I messed up.. A couple times.. But that’s the whole point of a WAX tablet; you can smooth it out and have a redo! After the wax hardened Alyssa carved the holes in the sides of the tablet with the new knife they'd bought.Just image if the idea were never created that it was okay to mess up. Your work would be thrown out if you copied something down wrong and I’m sure after enough times, they would throw me out because I’d be such a liability. If makes me more grateful for my eraser, because it symbolizes my opportunity to learn and start over.

And what would a day of making Roman wax tablets be with out Jenga!?