let Us Dream
...
Suppose there were a Chemistry Depare ment whose members were willing-even eager-t,o work t,ogether over a period of several years. Suppose that this state of affairs were based on a realization of the really deep student dissatisfaction with science courses; on a realization of t,he conceptual poverty of so many Conferences, and Programs of Chemical Education, which bog down in a reverent rearrangement of minutiae in the name of "innovation," and "advance." Suppose that this Department has not succumbed to t,hc blandishments of inst,rumentation, so that it does not have a large inventory of gadgets pressing down upon it as an equity-incubus; so that, in the pursuit of "quantitation," and "measurement? and of ot,her more sophist,icated slogans the elementary students hardly learn what a chemical loolis like. (I know that this description does not apply to some teaching and teachers, and I ask t,hem not to he offended.) And let us suppose that these people have a frame of referencc-an attidude toward their studcnts-that. recpircs them to call on their own resources. Let us suppose further that thcy have the confidence and support, of thcir Dean and President so that there is some hope for implementation of their plans. W h a t then mzght they dn2
Suppose that, t,hese scientists decide to talm a scientific approach to writing a curriculum. They know that if t,hey make piecemeal changes these will be damped out by the weight of convcnt~ion,so that. such efforts will fritter away in frustration. They therefore decide t,o continue t,heir normal &aching while working out an holist,ic curriculum which, when introduced, will have the cffcct of a qutlnt,umjump. The first thing to do is to set down intended goals and basic principles. These may then bc implcmentcdfleshed out-with detailed statement,^ of course content, and then applicd, begiuning in the Freshman year. Moving down the temporal column as a displacement front', the full change will have been made in four years. This t,akes dedication, and patience, and a willingness to plan the whole program-all four years-before putting any of it into effect. Our Friends begin with statements of plausible principles based on experience. These arc principles that have to do with the behavior of students. (1) What is needed primarily is a change in attitude so that the student puts aside his "high-school culture" and becomes gradually more civilized and scholarly-q-hich means t,hat he develops an increasing degree of self-discipline. If one asks Freshmen what they remember of thcir physical science courses, what one is forced to conclude from their answers (on the whole) is that the recollection of substantive content is minimal; what is vividly re-
membered is an attitude toward sciencc: favorable, oven t,o a degree of dedication in a few, ncutral to couldn't-care-less in the many. The lesson to learn, I t,hink, is this: content is secondary. Now I can almost hear the outcry from offcnded collcagucs who all but worship content. Our Friends in this hypotl~et,ical department, however, are sufficiently hardnoscd to bclieve and act on what they observe, so they decido, as a second principle (2) to wipe the slat,e clean; to p u ~ h aside all the favorite topics whose infinite rearrangements have provided illusions of progress to so many harriod colleagues. Another thing thry hrar from thcir students is (3) relevance. This is a tough one. However, it seems clear that relevancc means authentic contact with their own beings. (Hear thr resonances of existential slogans?) So our Friends decide a t the very beginning that their chemistry curriculum must be rclcvnnt,, and must bring about a proper change in attitude. This is a happy decision because it fits just ns well as, if not better than, the program to be displaced xith tho uotion that student,^ should he educated. Thry rralizc, and indeed make it explicit, that u sound substantive program must sorve as a basis of, and an iutrllcctual scaffolding for, the development of attitutlinal changes, but this is secondary, because many such programs arc possible if only thcy are logical and relevant. For it is clcar that chemistry is so large a field that no four-year program can encompass more than a minute part of it,. Besides, what we are aftcr, t,hey would say, is to affcct the lir~es of the students (relevancc again!) so as to help them to become bettcr persons: more intelligent; morc mature; more understanding of nat,ure and man and themselves; more confident in their att,acks on problems; more humble in the face of the inexhaustibility of nature; morc wise to thc vagaries of mcn, t,han they were when they came to us and elected our program. The idea is to use chemistry as an educational tool for molding the students. "Bctt,er people through chrmistry" they might allow themselves to say, realizing that bettcr chemists will make bettar chemist,ry. Now what about content? But, before coming to details a few more principles need to he expressed. What, is it that is done in chemist,ry? You look out at t,he "world"; you analyze what you see. The fact is that the ordinary person looking a t t,he transformations of matt,er is so overwhelmed by the mult,iplicity and fantastic variet,y of nat,urc that hc hardly knows where to begin. I t took a Democritus and an Empcdocles; a Dalton and a Lavoisier: people of that creative and clear vision to pry out a few threads with xhich to unravel segments of the pattern. Wr take advantage of these insights. But we call them each time t,o t'he at,Volume 48, Number 12, December 1971
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tention of the students so that finally it sinks in that people do these creative things and even they themselves may aspire. . . Also that problems, even recalcitrant ones, do yield to inspired and dedicated attack. Another thing that we do is to put all these analytic results together in a synthesis in the form of theories and laws. But it is not enough to learn t,heories and laws. What one is after is the recognition t,hat the concept,^ developed in chemist,ry-electrons, prot~ons, atoms, bonds, energy, force, orbital-are idealizations in our minds (we have learned, too, to m i t e them down in books in our special symbolic forms which may lead the unvary, unless he is warned, to think them "real") which when we apply them to empirical reality fit exceptionally well, or at the worst well enough. So the third activity is application to pract,ice. Here we need to emphasize Bertrand Russell's aphorism to the effect that t,here is nothing that can lead one more confidrntly astray than a self-consistent theory. Every theory must be validated against nat.urr--our final arbiter. Our Friends mould plan, here, to call attent,ion to the fearful problems of theory formation and validation in those sciences that deal with people: behavioral, social, and polit,ical sciences. The intent of our Friends is humanizing (chemist,ry came out of alchemy, after all) and holistic since it turns out, as they will surely cmphasize, that all intellectual endeavors, all scholarship whatsoever, rests on these three kinds of activity, all going on toget,her, often hardly distinguishable. Thcsc are capable of being classified also in another way as knomledgc (cognitive realm), experience (subjective realm), and action (a realm of will and behavior), so that some variety of categories may be woven into the curriculum (I). Along the way our Friends, who have been to meetings and have talked over their ideas with colleagues, have been asked some hard questions. Mostly they boil down to: "Is it chemistry?" Their answer is basically this, I think. Chemistry is what chemist,^ do; better chemists will, as we said, do bet,ter chemistry; and in any case, the number of students who pass through our chemistry courses is large-far, far larger than the conceivable number of chemistry majors. Thus we must think broadly ahout all the students. The idea is to teach chemistry in such a way that students come from the course with a substantive knowledge of chemistry; an informed at,titude toward science; and as bett,er people. You see, we must r e member that science is a disturbing element in the modern world. Ernest Gdlner uses the term int,clligentsia for an intellectual class that has become alienated from its society as a result of its educat,ion, which has led it to anticipate a new order, to feel that it is possible to fashion our future a t least in some measure. Over against this, in a "Two Culture*;" sense he places the "schoolmen" who, also intelleo tuals, are alienated from change by an education which causes them to look backward or, as he puts it "at least to seek rationalization for skills inherited from the past, and questionably adapted to the present (S)." Science is a disturbing element. But at the same time it is our most powerful bearer of rational meaning (3). These insights we owe to our students in the name of chemistry-and science in general. And so to wntent. R.emember, however, that many 802
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possible approaches may exist. These depend to some extent on t,he temperament of the teacher and on that of the class (for we are concerned with a'+ titude). So our Friends do not make the mistake of setting up rigid and detailed guidelines, but t.hey believe in the principle that you choose the best teacher you can, give him broad specifications because of the courses to follow, and then trust him. Also, they realize that room should be left open explicitly for change, and especially for moves toward rationalization of scientific curricula (4). These broad principles may follow from the consideration that times have changed. In the older days when sciences had not been unified even to the minor extent they are at present, it made sense to classify topics into elementary, analyt8ical, organic, and physical chemistry. Also, this fitted neatly into the four-year sequence. But now it is clear that those treasured delights of the organic chemist: homology, isomerism, and especially geometric and optical isomerism, have been appropriated to inorganic chemistry. And emphases in hiochemist,ry and molecular biology on trace clement catalyst,^, phosphate bonds, and so on, have robbed him still further of his monopolies. But this has happened throughout chemistry. Analytical, the time-honored teacher of mental and manual discipline has been imported into all levels so that the subject, as a unifying term and theme for a year course, has virtually disappeared. This would be a step forward, in my opinion, wcre it not so oft,en accompanied by a move that places inst,rumcnts between intransigent chemicals and student hands. I am not opposed to instruments, of course, but to black boxes. The openness to view of a simple analytical balance is an ideal which all instruments should seek. Chemical substances are opaque enough. Again, physical chemistry of the older t,ype has been properly applied at all levels of the curriculum, leaving for the fourth year the more esoteric thcory and experiment that can only be educationally meaningful if the students come to it with a substantive background of some magnitude and detail. Thus our Friends decide to set aside the old categories and begin anew. Thc first fact that faces them as they consider detailed content is that chemistry, once largely a descriptive science, has moved more and more away from taxonomy and morphology toward process and associated t,heory. This does not minimize the importance of classification based on description, for this is a required basis for theory; it does change the emphasis and increase relevance in a culturc dedicatrd to change-a fact that our Friends repeat,edly allude to in class (in passing, so as not to be accused of didacticism and other more horrible things). Furthermore, as part of this change, they see that quitr a few aspects of physics are absolutely requisite to understanding processes and theories in chemist,ry. For example, such "simple" matters as proof of the existence of electrons, and some rvidencc about their nature, as well as empirical evidence for the nuclear atom, for energy levels in connection (most transparently) with the photoelectric effect, and in order to understand bonding in nuclei, atoms, molecules, and phases. This requires sure knowledge of a mini-
ma1 but carefully chosen amount of electrostatics, magnetism, and geometrical optics. I n response to this logical analysis of a quite evident state of affairs, our Friends decide to combine introductory physics and chemistry into a first-year course, inviting the physics department to join with them (5). Their aim is that at the end of the year the students know and understand what a function is; what is implied by the energy-levels in atom building in the sense that here we have a conceptual hierarchy such that each new stratum in each new period modifies and is modified by the previous ones, as for example the appearance of electrons in a 2s level signals a modification of those in the underlying 1s level, which a t the same time shield, and so modify the 2s; that energy levels apply to nuclei and up through all the lcvels of increasing complexity to bulk matter; that no system undergoing an observed process can be iso1at)cd in any absolute sense but must always be treated at least implicitly as an open system. They also expect the student to have a very t8horoughgrounding in the Periodic Classification of the Elements. This provides a conceptual framework for t,he entire four years of worlc and is a prototype of classification schemes in all the other sciences (4). They would expect the students also to realize that science is done by scicntists who exemplify values in their work: honest observing and reporting; ~it~hholding of judgment; reasonable (i.e., not stultifying) humility; an emphasis on t,heir rolc as creators and purveyors of rational meaning who recognize that there are accessible and valuable realms of noorational meaning; that irrational it,^ is detectable only by reason, and not the other way around. They would also rea7onably ~xpectthe students to be convinced that in t,hc long run thcy do not get anything for nothing; and that a certain degree of const,raint, as in self-discipline, is requisite for creative and scholarly satisfactions, t,o balance the desired variety that leads to changc. The chemistry st,udent,s should enter thr second year, then, with a strong scientific and cultural background. Those who arc not continuing in ~hcmist~ry have been shown some of t,he sourcns of power of science. Physics majors may branch off int,o morc specialized courses, as t,he chemistry majors must. I n the second year, after considering alternatives (if t,here are only two) or possib'ilit,ics (if there are many plans) our Friends may decide to devote the year to the chemistry of carbon compounds. This is a practical matter. First, the students may still bc studying mathematics; also there are available many good tcxts which emphasize the problcm-solving aspects of carbon chcmist,ry and the intellect,ual pleasurcs that arise from proof-of-structure work. Also, the detailed anatomies of reactions are oft,en particularly clrar, and so processes, their intcrpretatiou, prediction, and control cau be emphasized fruitfully. The third year may also be taken up with a good deal of descriptive chemistry. One good aspect of taking the chemistry of carbon in the second year is that t,here are so many chemicals that can be seen and smelled, with results aesthet,ically pleasing or not, as the case may be. But at least, t,he student's senses are involved. The same applies to the third year if i t is devoted to inorganic chemistry-wit,h continued
emphasis on the Periodic Table, of course. Here crystal structures and atomic models may bring home the ancient wisdom t,hat t,he outward visible form (e.g., of a crystal of sodium chloride, or an alum) manifests an inward invisible st,mcture. And again t,he emphasis on stereochemistry and its influence on the course of a reaction can reinforce in a powerful way the worlc of the second year. All these analogirs will, of course, be alluded t,o direct,ly or indirectly, so as to emphasize the unity of t,he science and the broad scope of the int,cllectual schemes. Our Friends have some difficultywith the fourth year. On the one hand, they realize that them is a cont,inuing tendency to push graduate courses, or graduatecourse materials, down into the undergaduate lcvels. The reasons for this are to some extent obvious. In so far as the material so introduced is digested and metabolized into the curriculum it may represent an improvement and an educational advance. (The Branstead theory represented such an advance, and may be mentioned as an cxample since it occurred so long ago t,hat increased blood adrenalin no longer follows mention of it-which would not be the case with some modern analogs.) But too often it merely represents increased specialization, which fragments the curriculum. Such material is rejected by our Friends. On the ot,hcr hand they sec a great deal of attractive chemistry coming out of research called molecular biology, and t,his is clearly of t,he greatest interest to students. So they may well construct a fourth year in which thermodynamics, relcvant physical chemistp not prcviously dealt wit,h, and advanced quantum theory are taught in a framework of molecular biological data. These broad guide-lines must,, of course, be fleshed out by the t,eachcrs of these courses. They alone can satisfactorily const,ruct syllabuses and book lists. Rut in keeping with principles, it would be expected that they would teach sound, substantive content in those areas that interest them and fit within t,he guidelines. At,titudinal changc is t,he thing! Along with all these courses would go laboratory. The trouble with a lot of laboratory, however, is t,hat it is essentially demmstrationsnot experiment,sdone by shdents who thereby, it is true, may gain some manual training. Moreover it is done in unison, as Echols, Jackman, and Riemann emphasize (6), and so loses some impact because of regimentation. Much better would be real experimental work, based on some preparatory explicit t,raining in techniques, in which each student, eventually docs something different for which he is responsible (his thing). A sensible approach of this kind is that taken a t Pfeiffer College, referred to above (6). Our Friends find that this is the most difficult part of their work of reorganization. I t requires them to fall back on their own intellectual resources; to devise many new experiments; and t30revamp old ones. A legit,imat,e question would be "How would we know, given such a course, that the students are thinking about what they are learning and are understanding some of the implications for their lives?" For after all, no one should carry out an experiment unless he could evaluate the results-and our Friends are t,aking a scientific approach. I think that the Volume 48, Number 12, December 7 971
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