What Happened to the Blackboard

When I was in school every room had blackboards. I mean one wall was windows and the other three walls were decorated with blackboards with only a couple of doors to break the chain. And we used them. Usually there were at least twelve pupils standing there figuring, at least several hours every day. The other day I had to go to the local school to pick up some books being donated to the library and I was surprised to see only a couple of white boards in each room, right up in front behind the teachers's desk. And it looked like they were used only by the teacher. I started thinking what these kids were missing out on. One of the uses for the blackboard was to embarrass a student that wasn't prepared for class. The teacher would call them before everybody and get them to reveal their knowledge, or ignorance as the case might be. This was usually good for a laugh, unless it was me that was called on. Also blackboard were messy and gave some lucky kid a chance to leave the room and go out to the steps that led to the red clay basketball court to beat the chalk out of the erasers. It was the only time we got hold of the teacher's paddle instead of having the paddle get hold of us. I hear they don't have paddles anymore. But my favorite thing about blackboards was how the chalk could be made to screech if you knew just how to do it. This got under a lot of people's skin especially teachers that were going through the change of life. I reckon I prefer blackboards to whiteboards, all in all.