letters Too Little and Too L a t e T h e Real Cause of the Problems in Teaching To the Editor:
Your November editorial entitled "Too Little, Too Late" is also too little and too late. As an educator who has invested over 30 vears in precollege science education I wish the people studying chis probiem would spend a year in the classroom as a full time teacher before passing on any major pronouncements. To do less is to overlook the problem. The Carnegie Commission on Science Techmonigy and Government cites statistics that "by the year 2000.25% of the children in the school system will be poor, 33% will be minority, and nearly 10% will lack the English language proficiency required for learning". We can agree on that much of the problem. To lav the blame on the Federal government or to expect the Fkderal government to h a v e k y influence on this problem is to be unrealistic. As the late Representative Michael Kirwin was fond of saying "The first job of any politician is to be reelected". At the present time, reelection and responsible legislation do not run parallel. You state that science and math skills are critical for eood iobs. So are manv other skills including personal responsibility,ability to work with others, re&& for oneself and for others. and the abilitv to follow instructions. I was taught these personal skills-at home. As a middle school teacher (6th, 7th and 8th grade), my wife is still trying to teach these personal skills to her 187 students. As a social studies teacher she finds teaching geography and world history rank second to trying to prevent fights and to conduct an organized class. My time as a high school science teacher was spent in much the same way. Students with learning problems o h n had a tutor paid for with tax dollars. Getting these students to turn in the papers that they did with the tutor or sometimes done by the tutor was difficult. They wuld not even remember to bring the paper to "Is--
Restructuring education is also cited as a need. There is lots of research available on how to improve education and classroom instruction. It would be S c e to have time to search the literature and try some of the ideas. With 315 minutes per day spcnt trying to teach students, teachers are exhausted at the end of each day. Add extra duty assimments such as club activities. PTA. attendine athletic " events and concerts, judging science fairs, drilling the academic wm~etitionteam. scheduling and attendine -.~ a r e n t conferences with parents who do not encourage academic excellence, and all the other demands on a teacher's time adds to this exhaustion. Try grading 187 papers in an evenine. Even if each Daoer is onlv piveu 30 sewnds. that represents over 1 1 1 2 h k r of t i & e r ~ h egrades alsb need recorded. That takes more time. Having survived a teacher training program of the late 1950's, I know from f r s t hand experience that, as younote, the programs are improving, a t least in Ohio and Indiana. Student teachers coming into my classroom have a better idea of what to expect than I had when I started my student teachine. Some education ~rofessorsare even trvine to provide realistic classes for practicing teachers G i m I Drove teacher knowledee and skill. The one answer no one seems to have is what-one does with the student who re-
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sists one's best efforts a t education. Society requires that this student remain in my classroom even though this student oRen is disrupting the classroom and denying other students an education. The recommendation that the Federal scientists "fan out to improve the schools and the school systems in their regions" bas some merit. I would hesitate to invite one of these people without hearing a presentation first. Some of the presentations I hear a t American Chemical Society meetings are so boring that I have trouble staying awake even when I am interested in the subject. About 10%of my students lack the respect to keep quiet and let the presentation continue. Disciplining these students involves more parent conferences because their parents won't believe their child would do anything to deserve punishment. A mentorship program, which would allow a quick phone call by a teacher to answer questions that arise, would help. Another program that helps is providing one-on-one personal involvement with students. Having these 60.000 Federal employees work with 60,000 students would help the students involved. It mieht not help all 60.000 but it is a start. The comment concerning middle school teachers falling short of standards for course work preparation set by professional associations is true. If course work for teachers would really solve the problem in middle school and high school, more teachers would go back to school. My undergraduate physics courses (18 hr)involved calculus. When faced with teaching physics a t the high school level, I found I had to relearn all the presentations. None of my students spoke calculus, and I did not understand the physics because I was too concerned with learnine the calculus to learn the physics. My chemistry bacGound would not meet "professional association" guidelines but prepared me for teaching chemistry to high school students. It also met state licensing guidelines. Middle school science teachers do not teach one discipline. They teach smatterings of several disciplines. They need a eeneral background because they-will teach zoology, b;tany, physics, chemistry, geology, and weather as part of a day's work. They also need to know how to integrate all these disciplines. Amaior in chemistry doesn't help a bit when next semester the; will have to teach the life-cycle of the frog. The middle school mathematics teacher has it no easier. During the day a math teacher may be involved in teaching addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division of whole numbers to students who still can't do these functions. Even given a calculator, some of them can't figure in h buttons or which function kev to which order to ~ u s the push. This groGp of students walks out &r 45 min;tes and 4 minutes later another group of students walk in and this teacher is faced with teacgng the factoring of qnadratic equations. In a larger school, middle school teachers may be more able to specialize than they can in a small school. The problem of the student who does not care and is being guided by a parent who does not care can not be solved by the President of the United States, this JounalS Editor or by me. I got overcome by the day-to-day grind and retired from public school teaching. I now substitute teach and teach a night class a t a local college. The problems cited here are not typical ofjust two schools where my wife and I teach.
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Volume 69 Number 5 May 1992
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They appear in all the schools in which I substitute and are mentioned by teachers in informal discussions a t teaching conventions. Inner city teachers have even more problems with this than those of us teaching in urban areas. The solutions to this problem are simple. Take all the money that is being spent on commissions to study education and spend it for developing classes for teachers to improve themselves. A good chemistry teacher does not need physical chemistry with calculus, the teacher needs physical chemistry taught with understanding. This teacher needs to know how chemistry is used in industry and to know why a particular concept is important to the life of the student. Remind all the people who are critical of today's teacher that the school of today is responsible for more than teaching the 3R's. Start teaching your children to be responsible for their actions and demand that others do the same. If your children forget their lunch money or homework, do you bail them out and bring it in or do they suffer the consequences of their lack of responsibility? When that big paper is due and your child's paper isn't ready, do you write an excuse saying they are sick? Are you teaching your child honesty and responsibility? Don't be critical of the graduate from the school if you do not help educate that graduate in the skills needed to k e e a~ "iob. Demand that school administrators enforce the school rules and that there be disci~linein classes. The disru~tive students deny other students an educational opportunity. The school population containing 33% minority children and 25% poor children will not be a problem for the schools if people will stop making excuses for these children and their parents. The minority and poor children children can achieve if they will. This has been demonstrated in many schools. If children do not desire an education, educational research demonstrates that thev will not receive it. even with the best instruction in the world. If you really believe that there will be a demand for all these technically literate people when they graduate then don't wait for the schools to solve the problem. They can't! They need the support of the public and they need a change in public attitude. The schools will only succeed when the public is ready to take responsibility for education and is willing to work in support of education instead of waiting for the schools to do it all. My wife is an outstanding teacher and has a few awards supporting this claim. The lack of public support and encouragement has her counting the yean until she can retire. I was a good high school teacher, although not outstanding. I retired as soon as I could, frustrated by the lack of encouragement and by the negative press caused by peoole who do not understand the nroblem. Teach for a vear in the public schools if you can. If you still think the schools are the problem, fine! More likely, you will wonder how schools turn out as many good students as they do with the quality of the students entering the schools.
Alternative Aufbau Mnemonics To the Editor:
It is interesting to see, as Scerri ( I ) points out, the pastime of devising Aufabu mnemonics to teach electronic configurations still continues. Scerri cites several recent examples. However, almost thirty years ago, Andrews & Kokes (2-4)offered a method for determining electronic configurations which we believe to be one of the best presentations. Our discussion of their method and our expanded uses of it have been described elsewhere (5). Joseph P. Bevak Eugene J. McDevitt Siena College Loudonville, NY 12211 Literature Cited 1. Scerri, E.R. J. C k m . Edue. 1891.6S.445 2. Andrews, D. H.; K0kes.R. J.Fundomentol Chemistry; Wiley: New York, 1962;ppl05. 510-13, and inslde back cover 3. Andrewa, D. H.;Kokea,R. J.Fun&montd Ckrnistry, 2nd dd.; Wiley:NeuYork, 1965: pp 54,502406,and inside back ewer 4. Andrews, D. H.6fmducloryPhy~LmlChernlsfry;Mffiraw-Hill: NewYorh 1970:pp. 2,n-n3 ", W".
5. Beuak, J . P.;MeDevitZ E. J. JColl. Sci k c h . 198?,16,43P36.
The Best Aufbau Mnemonic: The Periodic Table
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James T. Martino 471 3 BOOlh Road Oxforo.Oh 45056
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Journal of Chemical Education
Dear Editor:
I was happy to see the letter by Scerri in the May 1991 issue of this Journal emphasizing the artificiality of mnemonics for fillinn electron confimrations. Every year I ask my freshmen if they have heard about orbitals. and thev alwavs tell me that thev have some artificial s&eme fo; memorizing(!) the order of filling of the orbitals as if the periodic table depended on these mnemonics. They have things exactly backwards! I should like to suneest that there is alreadv (or there the wall of every che&stry classshould be) hanging room a mnemonic device for eenerating the order of filling of the orbitals in the ~ufbau-approximation. This dev& the Denodic table itself. should be the only scheme used to talk about Aufbau. he closer we stay to the table, the closer we are to real chemistry. The reason that the 4s level fills before the 3d level is because potassium is similar to sodium, and does not have an entirely new chemistry-as does scandium. This kind of reasoning seems much closer to the real world than does some "n + 1rule" which talks about numerology and not chemistry. Exceptions to the straightforward trends, like chromium, are handled by pointing out that we should marvel that the Aufbau works as well as it does, not that it sometimes disagrees with what Nature has decided to do. I t is good, of course, to let students know that we are not teaching a "closed book" but rather a living subject about which not everything is known. Using the periodic table exclusively to rationalize elmtron assignments has the advantage of emphasizing the experimental aspect of the science and avoids giving the impression that chemistry is nothing but a set of mysterious rules. Oliver G. Ludwig Villanova University Villanova. PA 19085
