The Simple Genius of the Blackboard 黑板：平凡的奇迹.docVIP

The Simple Genius of the Blackboard 黑板：平凡的奇迹 　　作为现代课堂的“标配”，黑板是学生们再熟悉不过的工具了。尽管最初的黑板已经逐渐演变为“绿板”“白板”，但其功能并未发生太大的变化。黑板仍然是整间教室注意力的中心，是全体学生瞩目的焦点。它犹如一面神奇的反光镜，老师将知识投射到黑板上，黑板又将知识反射到一双双求知若渴的眼睛中，用点滴智慧滋养他们的心灵。 　　The blackboard is a recent innovation. Erasable slates， a cheap but durable substitute for costly paper and ink， had been in use for centuries. Students could practice reading and writing and math on their slates， in the classroom or at home. But it wasn’t until 1800 that James Pillans， headmaster of the Old High School of Edinburgh， Scotland， wanting to offer geography lessons to his students that required larger maps， connected a number of smaller slates into a single grand field. And in 1801， George Baron， a West Point mathematics teacher， also began to use a board of connected slates， the most effective way， he found， to illustrate complex formulas to a larger audience. 　　The blackboard-centered classroom offers more than pedagogical1） efficiency； it also offers an effective set of teaching possibilities. In such a classroom students are focused on the teacher （on a good day）， but most importantly， they are focused. The teacher is not the focus of the class but rather a lens through which the lesson is created and clarified. The teacher draws the class toward her， but she projects the lessons onto the blackboard behind her， a blank surface upon which smaller ideas may be gathered into larger ones. The blackboard is the surface of thought. 　　During Miss Babb’s fourth-grade science lessons， when she drew the solar system or the structure of a molecule2） on the blackboard， my mind became inflamed with new ways of seeing the universe. The school provided， of course， a science textbook， with lovely illustrations and photographs， some in color， and detailed descriptions in prose， of the very same things Miss Babb drew on the board. But it was not the textbooks that made science infiltrate3） my brain. It was Miss Babb and a piece of chalk， her writing on a blank field