There are critics who maintain that teaching has hardly changed over the past century. Such critics know little of the history of schooling, particularly how teachers have taught. Teaching requires tools just as learning does. As long as there have been age-graded schools with one teacher and and a group of students distributed through a building, teachers and students needs tools, i.e., technologies, to instruct and learn. Enter the slate blackboard in the early 19th century. Classroom technologies from the slate blackboard to present-day student-held computer devices have altered incrementally, not fundamentally, how teachers teach. This guest post documents the changes that have occurred in a historic and basic classroom tool, one that long ago went by the name: blackboard. And do not forget chalk and erasers accompanying this ubiquitous technology.
Kim Kankiewicz is a Seattle-based writer who has published articles in Pacific Standard, Salon, The Washington Post, and McSweeney’s. This piece appeared in The Atlantic, October 13, 2016.
In 2015, the construction crew renovating an Oklahoma high school uncovered an unusual time capsule. Beneath newer wall coverings, the workers discovered slate blackboards marked with schoolwork and colorful chalk drawings from 1917. Multiplication problems appeared beside a treble staff denoting an A-major CONTINUE READING: There’s No Erasing the Chalkboard (Kim Kankiewicz) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice