Blackboards frame issues while defining their temporality. The slate is wiped clean with the assumption that what was on the board is now firmly etched in the minds of the children. Chronic illness is such a topic. Mentioned occasionally in the context of children returning to school from hospitals, it is often afforded the same temporality that blackboard messages receive. Studies accumulate that attest to the danger of ignoring the complexity of issues that surround children with chronic illness and of paying only transitory attention to the ongoing covert needs of this population-needs that just can't be erased at the end of the day.
All children benefit from an understanding of chronic illness.
Unfortunately, too many erase from the board any reference to it, having learned that it's better to pretend that it does not exist. They all know when it's present, though, and they all know, by the silence that surrounds it, that there must be something about it that is terribly wrong. What they don't know is how to think about it, and they can't figure out why the subject is taboo. And so they cope, and that coping often takes the form of withdrawal from the source of this conundrum, or of ridicule of their classmates who must come to school with the burden of chronic illness often heavy on their backs. Blackboards also delineate the classroom, announcing the identity of its inhabitants and the nature of its charge.