The blackboard is nothing more than an opaque board, but it can become a clear window into the world.
Bansho not only serves as a means of visual communication; it has the potential to manifest as one possible world on its surface, representing the symbolic living and learning space and becoming a medium through which teachers and children explore the objective world.
(Hatta, 1971)
Bansho is a Japanese teaching method that involves the use of a board (chalkboard, whiteboard, electronic board…). Its translation to English is “use or organization of blackboard” or “board writing” (Yoshida, 2002).
In the classroom, the board displays learning tasks and goals, explains thinking processes and working methods involved in learning tasks, and elaborates on the learning content (Dictionary of School Education, 2014).
For this intentional and effective use of the board (Kuehnert et al., 2018) to happen during a lesson, bansho keikaku (boardwork planning) is central as it is part of lesson planning. It includes considering the lesson content, resources used, and anticipated student responses (Tan et al., 2018).
The real product of bansho is not merely an aesthetically pleasant board; it should reflect the lesson flow and process of collaborative work between the teacher, students and resources. As long as learning and the search for intellectual paths continue in the classroom, bansho should evolve alongside them, like an unfinished kinetic art.