teachers confessions
How school really is

"'Rome at the time of Caesar' - I have written this headline in chalk to a classic slate, so for a moment I am the happiest teacher on the planet, for I had forgotten what writing was like with chalk, at my former school it exclusively digital whiteboards.

And yes, these boards are sometimes awesome. For example, you can watch cinema-quality DVDs on them. A fitting YouTube short video to illustrate a tough text? No problem!

Nevertheless, my yearning for the classic table grew year after year. Why? Quite simply: For the daily Anschriebe of all kinds, the proven slate is not just as good, but usually better.

Often, for example, I say: 'Anna, write down your results!' Anna, who always finishes very quickly, jumps up, hides behind the unfolded table and presents her results later. With boards you can work wonderfully differentiated in this way - digital whiteboards, on the other hand, are just XXXL desktops that can not be unfolded.

Tables on normal boards can be filled out by many students at the same time. Such a collective entry often ends in pedagogically valuable chaos, because the students are on the move, and the comparison brings a lot of fun because of the different student contributions. Even that does not work on the digital whiteboard, because you can not write with several pens at the same time.

Now and again I hear: 'Mr Ulbricht, I can not decipher your writing!' 'Sorry', I say and then write neat. And it is true! Chalk panel paintings are individual and literally bear the handwriting of the teacher because you simply can not convert your own typeface into a standard font or upload a Word document prepared at home. And that does not make us teachers inhuman.

And last but not least: The slate is ready to use. Okay, sometimes it needs to be wiped (takes a minute). And if chalk is missing, send a student to the parallel class (takes thirty seconds). The digital whiteboard first has to be powered up and the (expensive) pen 'calibrated' to pull its lines where it is put on.

And sometimes nothing works - expensive technology is vulnerable. Then a digital whiteboard is useless until the system administrator has time and finds the error (and fixes it at some point). A slate never breaks.

For educational politicians, whose favorite subject is the digital pact, the slates are unfortunately relics from ancient times - from the Cretaceous so to speak. Most of all, they would like to exchange all slates for digital whiteboards today. In fact, teaching would be more digital, and the degree of digitization currently seems to be the only criterion for the school of the future.

This is unfortunately mischief. We do not need total digitalization, but enough enthusiastic colleagues, dedicated social workers, and class sizes that allow for meaningful instruction. The green boards were and are no problem. Most colleagues like to work well with them.

So let us!