Write. Erase. Repeat.

Quick back story: About a month ago I began subbing for the Toledo Public School district. Although I've taken to it far more than I thought I would, there's one thing I've found particularly delightful . . . chalk!

Nothing in the classroom satisfies me like the dry, powdery, cool feel of a stick of chalk. And there is little that can compare to the pleasure of striking and dragging said stick across that black porcelain enamel wall (a.k.a. the chalkboard).

Write. Erase. Repeat. Sheer simplicity and genuis.

During a lecture, I've found that nothing drives home the point like a series of staccato strikes and scratches from my cylinder of calcium sulfate. In other words, chalk gets the job done: its stark white on black burns the image of isosceles traingles and object pronouns forever into the minds of those entrusted to my tutelage.

Further delight is to be had when the larger pieces of chalk shrink from use and are then able to be shaken in a loosely-clenched fist (imagine shaking a pair of dice). It's quickly become a habit that may be akin to the smoker who incessantly flicks the ashes off her cancer stick. The students that I've had for more than a couple of days have noticed and taken to my quirky proclivity. Last week a couple of them began emulating my behavior by picking up their own chalk bits and giving them the requisite shakes. Ah, there's nothing like molding young minds.

Alas, the elementary school at which I've spent most of my time teaching so far will move into a new building in 2010. I fear that my precious chalkboard and its accoutrement of chalk tidbits, dust, and felt erasers will go the way of the dinosaurs, and I'll be left with the annoyances of white boards. Then, fingers besmirched by dry-erase markers, I'll make my lonely way into the 21st century mourning the loss of one of humanity's greatest of inventions.

An Ode to Chalk:

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels,

and have not chalk, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

And though I though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries,

and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains,and have not chalk, I am nothing . . .

And now abideth faith, hope, and chalk, these three; but the greatest of these is chalk.