Note: I’ll be retiring in July 2026, after 40 years of teaching English as a foreign language to deaf and hard-of-hearing students. (Actually, after 41 years, but my first year didn’t count…)
Chalk.
Glorious bright colors on the board.
Vivid colors on the board and all over my hands…
I pressed too hard, and they snapped. Since I always press hard when I write (I’m unable to use a mechanical pencil!), bits of chalk were my writing tools.
Clap your hands – chalk dust off.
Erase the board – cough in a cloud of dust, which would get bigger as the lesson progressed and the eraser absorbed more and more chalk dust.
I never tried to master the art of throwing chalk at a daydreaming student, despite having had a math teacher back in high school who excelled at it. His aim was impeccable! The students actually respected him more after each flying piece of chalk! Despite this fine example, I was too aware of reality to attempt it. Not only could I not rely on my motor skills to get the chalk to land at its destination, but chalk-throwing was absolutely not a behavior I wanted to model for my deaf and hard-of-hearing students!
Naomi Epstein’s Photos
One day, I came to class and discovered that the school had installed a very small, square whiteboard in my classroom, while leaving the long, rectangular greenboard on the other wall. We had to turn all the desks and chairs around to face the newcomer.
That turned out to be a win-win combo, which I enjoyed for about fifteen years until I had to move classrooms.
The green board became a makeshift bulletin board. I used different colors to post the grammar structures we were learning and new vocabulary items. I didn’t suffer from the chalk dust because the material would remain up for at least two weeks.
Meanwhile, what a treat those markers seemed!
I could just toss them in my schoolbag, without needing a special protective box like I had to have for the chalk.
The markers didn’t snap in half, and I no longer coughed when erasing the board, which are serious points in their favor.
However…
Markers can be difficult to erase, too, especially as whiteboards age.
And you simply cannot place a marker on its side and roll it across the board to create a bright, thick border around your message to the students.
Farewell, chalk and whiteboard markers! I shall do well without you both!