Word: blackboarding
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Like Bertolt Brecht and Max Frisch, Switzerland's Friedrich Duerrenmatt is one of those didactic dramatists who regard the theater as a classroom, the stage as a blackboard, the pen as a pointer and the playgoers as barely educable dolts. These playwrights take a dim view of man, dividing the species into two arbitrary categories: predators and prey, the fleecers and the fleeced. No one would deny that such characters are abundantly present in life, but to see the entire pattern of human behavior in these terms is one-eyed vision. As propounded in The Visit, currently being revived...
...small blackboard, noted with IOU's, hangs on one wall of the store. If the old Senora is behind the counter alone, and if you buy a few things, then she will have to go out and find the younger Senora, her daughter-in-law, who will go and get her young child, or her husband, if he is home from the fields, to come and figure the sum. Otherwise the Senora adds one more note to the board...
...play with boys neither unaggressive nor overly so. He sometimes has the parents use a complicated point system: five points might be awarded for taking the role of father in playing house, for example, five subtracted for wearing a dress. The tally may be kept on a blackboard, and, when a positive total of, say, 30 is reached, the boy will be rewarded with a trip to Disneyland. Conversely, enough demerits might result in the loss of television privileges. The aim of this stern regimen is to prod the boys into masculinity through rewards and penalties...
Positive Thought. Still, Larry Miller was not satisfied. He installed a blackboard at home and wrote out a daily training program for the boy. Each evening Johnny dutifully checked the blackboard and then performed the prescribed number of barbell exercises, push-ups and basement practice shots before going to bed. To strengthen his wrists, he was given a small rubber ball to squeeze and carry with him at all times. At 15, Johnny was a wispy 5 ft. 2 in., 110 lbs., and needed all the muscle he could get. Two years later he was 10 in. taller-strong...
Someone had copied a textbook description of Kathryn's problem on the blackboard: Mongolism (Down's Syndrome)--Educable or Trainable. IQ range 20-60. Low perceptive abilities, low motor control." Kathryn spelled out her name in chalk below her definition...