Crayola and other companies sell many varieties of chalk for kids to color with. Sidewalk chalk, glitter chalk, 3D chalk etc. I just got my daughter a scooter that has three chalk holders on the back and leaves a chalk trail when she pushes down on it with her foot. So, even if chalk becomes obsolete in the classroom, there is still a large, possibly more lucrative, chalk market that will keep it in stores.
You need to clean a chalk board at least once a week, possibly as much as once a day if you use it a lot. But I’ve seen whiteboards go for months without cleaning, without any degradation. The trick is to not fall prey to the Board-Cleaner Conspiracy. On the rare occasions where you do need to clean a whiteboard, just use plain ordinary water and paper towels. Never, ever use the special spray bottle of solvent. If you ever use that stuff, it’ll damage the surface of the board such that, thereafter, it’s the only thing that’ll work and you’ll need to use it all the time.
And there’s a generational divide between chalkboards and whiteboards, which seems (in my experience) to about match the generational divide between FORTRAN and C. Older folks prefer the feel of chalk, while younger folks prefer the feel of markers, and all of the other considerations end up being of minor significance compared to the preference for feel.
i find that in a brightly lit room from a distance that a dark background is more readable than a white background, especially if the white background has reflectance and the line width is small.
Chalk (dust, anyhow) is still used to “snap a line” in construction.
For 3rd world countries, UNICEF has a “school in a box kit” for emergency or inaccessible places, that comes among other stuff with a small can of black chalk board paint, so people can use any old board lying around, the next wall or door, and have a chalkboard to write on. Chalk is cheaper than markers and doesn’t dry out.
I know all this, but rooms are usually shared by others, who use old, dried-out markers. Then the board has to be cleaned just about every day.
Did anyone else ever stick pieces of chalk in the erasers, so that when someone went to erase the board, all you’d get was a line of chalk? Good times.
When I started teaching I had blackboards and chalk, which I loved. Then I had whiteboards and markers, which I loved a little less. Now I have a SmartBoard, which I have no strong feelings about but I really only use it to project onto (I have a small whiteboard at the side which I use for writing on since it doesn’t need to be calibrated or stop working halfway through a lesson and erase everything that was written on it). When we move into the new building, I’ll probably have a Promethean. I used one once, I didn’t like it much. They all have benefits and drawbacks, but I must say I miss the chalk, and I’d have it back if I could.
I live in L.A. now but grew up going to school primarily in Minnesota and North Carolina. Nothin’ but whiteboards. (and I did go to college here at a CSU but no blackboards there either)
I went to college in the late 1980s and my school used overhead projectors in almost every classroom and lecture hall. Each projector was equipped with a roll of transparency film so the lecturer could unroll clean film as needed. Also, the writing surface is about the size of sheet of paper, so it’s comfortable to write on (I think they used grease pencils) and also you’re facing the audience as you write.
I did wonder what system they had for cleaning all of those rolls of transparency film. I imagined a clerk down in a building somewhere who had a full-time job just collecting the rolls, cleaning and returning them.
Are you sure they weren’t using these and that the teacher wasn’t just cleaning them off him or herself? That’s what they do today, and I think they had these back then, too.
Chalk is also very useful for drawing straight lines over a distance on a flat surface, using a chalk box.
Households also make chalkboards for kids to do their homework on, paper is too precious. The kids steal or beg the chalk rom their teachers, who get a limited supply and guard it fiercely as their most precious tool in the fight against ignorance.
I’m a young teacher who prefers chalk. Markers are too often dry, faint, squeeky or empty. Chalk always does what it claims to do.
I avoid digital stuff whnever possible (and I’m generally into technology.) It lacks immediacy and encourages students to disengage. It hinders learning as a liminal exprience. Boards have a right here right now quality that encourages real learning.
After 15 years teaching I’ve come to loathe whiteboards.
They’re nice when they are new and clean and the markers are too. They age terribly and unrepairably.
At the school I teach, we have 6m long chalkboards. With good chalk they are almost dust-free and, at the end of the year you simply paint them again.
We have projectors and roll-up screens.
An interesting alternative to whiteboards is using a large and thick sheet of glass. you can wrote on them and they don’t don’t age badly.
To really make chalk go away you’d need dirt-cheap touchscreen-boards.
I don’t really think we are running out.
Yes, I know blackboard chalk is really gypsum.
And put me down as another teacher who thinks chalk is still best.
Chalk on a blackboard is good, but chalk on slate is the very heaven. I refused to teach in classrooms with white boards. I was required to buy my own markers. FTS! I can’t stand the smell, they are always running dry and rub off with plenty of dust too. Chalk is cheap and plentiful too. Fortunately, in my building they still have blackboards (even if some are green). It will be a long time before chalk is obsolete. Just too many advantages to it.
Every classroom in my school had a blackboard and in my university most rooms still have them too. I was born in 1981.
I too hate whiteboards for all the above reasons. Add in the chemist factor and you know some idiot will try to clean the board with acetone, thereby ruining the surface permanently. The markers allways dry out, and I’ve never seen one that did’t have feint permanent marks on it.
How long do chalkboards last?
Until they fall and crack. Those things are heavy.