The Use Of Blackboards In Schools

Infact scientists have known to do some of their best work on black boards! In today’s world corporate’s have also begun using a modified form of it as an effective medium to convey information to its employees.  Thanks to the whiteboards that have sprung up as an alternative in the corporate world,  a large number of people in the same room can now be presented with the same material all at once.

These boards have also become a means of working expansive strings of problems and has led to a series of “brain storming" series on the latest theories, hypothesis and concepts among a group of people at one shot. However, much before the Black boards made their appearance, students sat in schoolrooms with slates that were made of a wood board painted over with black grit which they used to write their assignments on. Those who could afford it managed to buy themselves porcelain slates which were imported from the United Kingdom. The only problem that crept up was that the Teachers would have to copy whatever they wanted to write on the board to on each child’s slate. This became a little tedious for the teachers especially when it came to copying out long math problems onto each student's individual slate.

The history of Chalkboard education dates back to when Mrs. Olive M. Isbell opened the first school in California in the year 1846. It was a challenge to teach the children at that time because there was no slate, blackboard and paper, and eventually the alphabets came to be written on the back of her student’s hands. Gradually with the increase in the enrolment of students, it became expensive to import more of these slates and teachers felt it was slowing down the pace of imparting instruction.

The basic stationary comprising of pencils and paper were often in short supply and some families couldn’t even afford it. Making mass copies of notes was a rarity because there were no Xerox machines at that time. Later on James Pillans, the Headmaster cum geography teacher of the Old High School of Edinburgh, Scotland, finally invented the blackboard and colored chalk so that he could teach geography to his students better.

The blackboard revolutionized education. In the year 1801, George Baron, a teacher at West Point Military Academy, incorporated a large black chalk board for the first time to present his math topic. By the mid-1800s, a blackboard was to be found in almost every school and had become the single most important educational tool. Chalk boards remained the fundamental basic educational fixture in schoolrooms and will always be, despite smart classes making their appearance on the educational front.