1. Carroll King Northwestern University Evaoston, Illinois 60201
Chemical EducationWhere to Now?
T h e question affixed to the title for this discussion, in my opinion, can be answered, indeed it must be answered, with a single sentence. Toward sensible, relevant education promulgated at a sane and reasonable rate, keeping in mind that education i s fov students. I n looking over the record of the remarks of some of my distinguished predecessors who have been privileged to occupy this spot on your program, I find the following,' 1968-"Chemistry. .. Curiosity and Cdture," by William F. KiePier. 1967-"hmovations in Wriliug, Teaching and Experimentation," by Louis F. Fieser. 1966-"The Role of Analytical Chemistry in the Changing Curriculum," by Conway Pierce. 1965-"Contributionr of the ACS Examination Committee to Chemical Education," by Theodore Ashford. 1964-"The Discovery Process and the Creative Mind," by A1 Garrett.
As a background for my own remarks, I am going to interpret each of these as showing concern in one way or another for our student,^ and the educational fare we dispense for them. I will argue that in these papers there is an evidence of a trend toward the realization that education i s fov stwlents. I n the remarks of Professors Pierce and Ashford, we see preoccupation with the ever present problems of measurement of student accomplishment, and with the problem of arranging and rearranging the "expanding c~mponent~s" of the chemistry curriculum. These activities are a familiar part of the lives and act,ivities of all of us, and will continuc as important concerns. However, I would classify t.hese activities as essentially teacher-oriented. Students are the product, hut the concern here is for its management and standardization. I n his 1964 address Professor Garrett opened with the statement from Boris Pasternak's "Dr. Zhivago." "The fabulous is never anything but the commonplace touched by the hand of the genius." I am inclined to interpret the Garrett preoccupation with the charm and exciting history of our discipline and with the attitudes of men present when great discoveries were made, as concern for the student, with a desire on Garrett's part to share with the student much more than the material benefits of chemistry. I n a like manner, I interpret the
-The Cover
The 1960 ACS Award in Chemical Education sponsored by the Laboratory Apparatus and Optical Section of the Scientific Apparatus Makers Association was presented to L. Carroll King at the 157th Meeting of the ACS at Minneapolis in April of this year. Dr. King, professor of chemistry a t Northwestern University, is chairman of the Advisory Council an College Chemistry and s. former chairman of the Division of Chemical Education.
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Journal of Chemical Education
Fieser presentation as showing concern for the student. Concern that the student should have available, clear, and explicit directions for chemical reactions. The "innovation" in Fieser's many writings is the critical evaluation of the experimental records of chemistry and the preparation of clear, concise, and workable materials for students. Into Professor Iiieffer's 1968 address I read a new trend, preoccupation with all students. Kieffer is concerned with good teaching, with interesting presentation, and with the right material. But in his talk, there is an implicit commitment to the need of all students. He said Modern man cannot ignore science, and science cannot ignore modern man. If the futore citizens who now crowd our campuses are to have any understanding or at, least appreciation of the part science plays in modern culture, we must do the ednonting. We have an obligation to students, to all studentsscience and nonscience majors alike.
I n the remarks of these men we see the concerns all of us feel. We can say that all of us are concerned with, and that we are thinking about, our students, but we are a t least equally preoccupied with the strictly teacher problems. What to teach, when to teach it, and how does it fit into the structure each of us has in mind for the discipline, chemistry? We are concerned with "coverage." To some extent, we seem to feel our most important duty is to tell all of our students all about everything. This attitude is difficult for us in this era of expanding knowledge and the little bottle to he filled, our student, may be drowning in our outpourings. I would like to dedicate my remarks tonight to a call for a change in our attitude toward our students. I think our students need and require, from us, a more explicit commitment of time and interest in them as individual human beings. I think the students of the world are trying to tell us something, which they do not understand themselves. I thinlc they, like the lost child are crying out, "Please find me and take me home." This cry means "Pay some attention to me as an individual." I think it is time we listened and time for us to do something in response to that cry. Evidence is accumulating that students are rebelling against their lot, and that they are developing selfconcepts of being unworthy of both school and parent. There is an uncomfortahly large number of students who are unhappy, angry, frustrated, sullen, and disappointed. Are they casualties of our academic system?
Just a few years ago anyone, including myself,=who may have dared t o predict that something was wrong with our education and who reasoned that science and education would elicit from its receptors, the students, a violent rejection reaction, was considered funny, if not retarded. But, i t has happened! As I see it, we, the purveyors of education, including chemistry and science in general, are on the way to achieving the status of priesthood. Our knowledge is becoming esoteric, our sacrament is displayed in bewildering instrumentation, and our augury is fascinatingly unintelligible to the students and the man in the ~ t r e e t . ~ Perhaps it is not appropriate to use religion as an analog for this discourse, but as far as the average man on the street is concerned, and his children in our schools, the education system is as occult as the most arcane church. Furthermore, any criticism of our educational system is considered obstructionism, if not heresy, but we, the educational priesthood, are so entrenched that we can afford to ignore the heretics. However, the students, that congregation in our church analog, extract a price for their homage to our educational church. They want help in the pursuit of happineqs and in their search for fulfillment. When it became apparent to them that obvious evils such as war and their own feelings of unworthiness were not being eliminated, dissatisfaction ensued, "and the people murmured; they murmured against the system." I n our education system dissatisfaction has now reached the point for many where it may be said that rational discourse, as a means of approaching problems, is suspect. The demand for immediate control of events has taken its place. The cry is, "This education system shall be of the students, by the students, and for the students, or shall perish from the earth."4 This adult generation has a vested interest in this world. I t is proud of its accomplishments. It is convinced that the system it has evolved is useful and that change and progress are possible within it. I t is aware that children (students) are selfish, cruel, irrational, but lovable little animals. It is clear that the world is too valuable to turn over to children, or to young instructors. They must first he educated until certain adult traits dominate their response pattern. I know that the teachers here tonight are all good teachers, making a superb effort to do a good job. Most of you are consciously involved in preparing careful, logical, and sound teaching materials. You are involved in presentation of these materials in an ioteresting way and without doubt you consciously attempt to impart to students the same enthusiasm you have for your subject. But in these very desirable attitudes there is a trap. Unless the explicit and deep-seated need for attention, acceptance, and success, so important to students, is fulfilled, much of the effect of the effort is lost.
I have taken the position that the students are telling us something is wrong. Now let me put it like this. A young child literally has a love affair with life, with play, and indeed, with education. He wants to learn, he wants to experiment, he takes great joy in his every accomplishment. He is born with this capacity, and during his first few years at home he accomplishes educational fetes far more formidable than a school could dream of. His problem clearly is the schools and the way they operate. I am firmly convinced that if American education is to survive this crisis, it must undertake drastic change in its attitude toward students. This necessary change cannot originate in legislation. We have too much of that anyway. It cannot originate in administration. The organization mind cannot cope with individual needs. Indeed, administration and accounting practices are a major force in moving our teaching enterprise toward the infamous standardization it now enjoys. I feel we must somehow get a grass roots operation going among classroom teachers, who will say to themselves, this is my class and these are my students and I will provide for each individual as best I can, according to the individual student's need. I underscore individual student need. I n any humane and decent education program 1 ) There must be time. Time for the ~ t u d e n tto proceed a t his own rate. Time for play and recreation, Time for leisurely examination of idem and values. Time to recognize mistakes and practice correction of them. Time for students to explore their own ideas. For s t least a decade our society and our school systems have engaged in a continuous process of demanding from our students an ever increasing commitment of time and effort for formal educational activities. The result is s. tendency to push students to do their very best s t all times, as somebody else sees that best. This operation is clearly short-sighted I t is not in keeping with individual student need. His need is to understand a t his own rate. 2) There mnst he a goal. The student mnst know where he is supposed to go. He needs t,he assurance that in this direction there is progress, hut in attaining this god he must have time t,o do i t in his own way. 3) There m u t he progross. Without progress life is nothing hut frustration, but teachers must realize that progress may be made in many ways and a t different rates by students, as individuals. The idea. that each individual must proceed and pass the examination on day n or fail has got to go. 4) There must be success. Without a self-concept of success the student can only experience failure. Students must somehow he given the right to succeed in terms of their own individual abilities. The educational god "educate ytndents to the limit of thei~.abilities" recently mouthed by many prominent politicians has got to go. The effect of this has been t,o keep students in school on a standard track until they fail. Wit,hout careful teacher consideration of the individual student need, this policy can mean disaster.
I am saying that every student must have a substantial share of very individual teacher attention. I am saying that education, in a sense, for each student is a private affair and a very personal affair. I am saying that the teachers must somehow provide this attention. a K ~L. ~C A ~ R ,R O LLecture, ~ "Chemical Education a t the They must provide for each student, on an individual High School College Interface," 2nd Middle Atlantic Regional Meeting, ACS, New York, February 6, 1967; KIN^, L. CARROLL, basis, the goal, the time to reach it, the feeling of per"Student Caualties," The Educalion Digest, XXXII, No. 8, 29 sonal progress and finally, they must provide for the (April, 1967). student a self-image of success. I n the classrooms of Paraphrased from BR~IJDY, HARRYS., "Science and Human our schools and colleges and universities, each teacher Values," The Science Tcocher, 36,23 (1969). must consciously dedicate himself to the theme, "These With apologies to Abraham Lincoln. Volume 46, Number 9, September 1969
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are my students and education is for them, for each of them as individual human beings." Only a few years ago this philosophy was the basis of teacher training programe, but this highly desirable attitude has crumbled under the assault of spokesmen, both within and without the teaching ranks, and from prominent political figures who call for national uniformity in education, a national education policy, for increased efficiency, for earlier placement in schools, for a longer school day, and for a longer school year. I have no doubt that these spokesmen have the best of intentions, but we have seen the result of fifteen years of t.heir machination on students. The students have rebelled. I n t,hese remarks I have tried to identify the cause of our present student unrest and unhappiness with various factors in our educat.iona1 system, which tend to dehumanize, humiliate, and reject him over a period of time when his greatest need is for rccognition. Now I propose that teachers on all levels of our education system can, and must, take steps to remedy this situat,ion. The teachers, by individual decision, should hegin a grass roots movement to revise their own attitudes as best they can to secure for as many students as possible the individual attention needed. Teachers must somehow provide a setting so that the studcnt emerges from the educational system with a self-image of success. A feeling of success to replace the present feeling of hopelessness, misery, and humiliat.ion. If every teacher in our present teacher population should heed this call, we would still have a major problem. There are not enough teachers available in our teaching force. It is my opinion we have the financial resources to meet this need, but it would require extensive revision of our national valucs and of our identification of the center of leadership. I t would require a return of educational control to a more local level. It would mean drastic reduction of federal spending, drastic increase of local spending, and a tax s h c t u r e dominated by local control. In making this suggestion, it is instructive to examine our national goals and their cost to each of us. The United States Budget5 for 1970 ($210,116 X lo6) lists, among others, the following expenses under vari'Tables 13 and 20. See especially, budget items 050-8, 250-1, 800-5, 910, and 810 in Table 13.
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Journal o f Chemical Edumtion
ous categories which I have collected under these general divisions NSF Military Activities (defense, veterans' henefits, space research, military pay, interest on war dehts) Office of Education (all programs)
3,586
X 10'
The share paid for each of these items by the average suburban taxpayer, paying around $5000 in Federal taxes, comes to about NSF Military Activities Educational Activities
11.00 2700.00 86.00
$
The same suburban taxpayer would have a local tax bill of about $600, around half of which would go for educational purposes. From this, I think the average taxpayer would draw the following conclusions. The $85 he contributed to the office of education certainly does not produce $85 worth of services when compared to $300 contributed to the local taxing districts. The $2700 he is paying for wars, past, present, and future, seems a little out of line, although the $11 to NSF seems reasonable enough. The federal tax policy bas literally destroyed t,he tax base for locel, municipal and state functions, where needed services, eapeeially educstio~ralservices, can he responsibly administered. We must have a drab reduction in the federal tax and a. definit,elimitalion on the federal t,axing power and a corrcsponding increase in local taxes. There is no lack of financial st.rengl:h in o m nation; only a grossly distarded commit,ment of funds.
For our children and students, for education, I recommend a grass roots movement for A drastic increase in local t.axing authorit,y, especially for our mast important, fmxtion, ed~~cation.Let, us bring the cost of edocat,ion back home, where local aecoru~t,nhililyrnu he observed, dehnt,ed, and rcasolrahly enforced. A drastic decrease in federal laxing nulhority, where rational fiscal acco~mtahilityclearly cannot be controlled. A drastic revision in orlr education syst,em, wherein the dignity, and the right of st~identnto individunl consideration and attention, will be emphasized. A change, away from the hig and "efficient" school systems which all too frequently t,wn out, t o he wasteful and humiliati~gfor the people they are supposed to serve.
I call for a soul-searching examination of ourselves and of our system in terms of what we are doing to and for our students, and to our hopes for immortality,,our children.
