In defence of messy whiteboards

I began teaching back when the world wide web was a mere cyber strand. It existed as a novelty but had not yet really begun to change the world as it would. As for whiteboards, they were interactive only in the sense that you had to wipe them clear, leaving a smeary blue residue until they finally received their big clean every half term break. In those halcyon days, a particular mark of teacher pride was always their board work. I even recall being assessed on it in observations; it was that big a deal.

I went to school in the mythic days of blackboards – both static and rolling varieties – with flying fag-ends of chalk bouncing off unwitting bonces and flung board rubbers exploding in cloudy white puffs against badly-behaved boys’ dark blazers. That would provide a talking point throughout any pupil’s day.

But my teaching career began as these more primal times were ending. Gone was the chalk that dried out teachers’ fingers and in came multi-coloured whiteboard markers that left them stained with ink instead. A brave new world beckoned. When learning how to teach, I even had classes on how to use a whiteboard properly. I was told nothing at all about computers and their screens. They were reserved for the computer science specialists, who hogged them then like ancient druids did their special stones. But I remember the lessons on how to use a whiteboard well.

I learned long ago to appreciate the craft of whiteboard work. A good board develops as the lesson progresses, displaying the creativity of the moment, new thoughts unfurling as light bulbs pop into being above students’ heads. Key words are circled and lines drawn to link ideas, quick and clumsy doodles illustrating a point while hasty under-scorings stress important terms that need to be learned. Sometimes a well-used whiteboard is a true work of art. I’ve sometimes even taken pictures of boards I was pleased with.

Back before I had my own classroom, I’d find boards with a message inscribed in the corner in bold capitals, a big box around the words ‘Please leave’.  Where then was your board work to be done? But it was a request mostly granted. Although occasionally you’d only see the request after half the work was already erased.

With modern interactive whiteboards, screens can be saved and scrolled through afterwards, referred back to or sent on to absent students. Board work can be made to last. But that seems to betray the beauty of the ephemerality of the learning moment, full of surprise and discovery. An organically developed whiteboard can contain a dynamism within its borders with which the dull bouncing titles and slow-fade-in photos of a pre-planned, earlier-prepared Powerpoint presentation can never compete. A pre-written, already-saved interactive whiteboard screen is simply no match for the slowly evolving, madly adapting quasi-organic life form of a well-worked whiteboard. That is a thing of beauty brought into being by the alchemical interaction of a class and a teacher inhabiting a moment together.

In a previous job, I was told to always close my gates on leaving any home I’d visited, primarily to stop pets escaping onto the street. It became a useful phrase later to indicate the need to never leave shared jobs half done for someone else to complete. Always close your gates. When I was later training to be a teacher, one of the only bits of advice I can recall was to always wipe your whiteboards clean at the end of your lesson. Partly this was to preserve the surprise for any incoming group but also the thinking was that, as a new teacher, you might well be sharing classrooms. Antagonising older colleagues by leaving whiteboards half-filled and still in need of a clean wasn’t a politic move to win hearts and minds in a school where you might soon want a job.

But throughout my career, I’ve loved entering empty classrooms to find filled-in boards that were inadvertently left behind. I’ve peered closely into the mysteries of such boards like some ancient crone looking deeply into her crystal ball or darkling mirror. Sometimes whole lessons from the recent past have swum back into view before my very eyes. I’ve somehow sensed the excitement of the enthusing pen-wielding teacher. I’ve traced the swirling eddies of side-questions and clarifications as inspiring ideas have been tracked and developed across the width and height of the board.

The liveliness of the lessons before mine have thereby become clear to me through the simple medium of that well-worked whiteboard. I’ve often found it frankly inspiring, knowing I stand in a line beside masters of the art and craft of teaching.

So despite the good advice I’ve received over the years about closing my gates and wiping my whiteboards, I now have another plan. I’m determined instead to forever keep my gates open wide with a welcome awaiting all and to happily invite all free whiteboards to constantly be filled. Let the tumble of learning commence.