EDITORIALLY S P E A K I N G
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topic always good for an argument among chemistry professors is how much theory or how much descriptive chemistry should dominate the introductory course. This has been so for years, and probably always will stand as one evidence for the vitality of both chemistry and chemistry professors. Recently we have noted a gradual but consistent shift in positions. Whereas formerly the advocates of the theoretical assailed their adversaries with the label "old fashioned," now the innovators are those asking for reappraisal of a course content which has grown more and more to be physical chemistry. Formerly, the epithet flung by the innovators was "dull memorization," now it often is "snobbish superficiality." Chemistry professors consistently resist any official kind of regimentation, and rightfully so. (When the AC, was established, its foremost policy declaration was that it would never put the stamp of approval on any one way of doing things.) Kevertheless, there are styles--even fads-of adherence to patterns of course content. Certainly the majority of the "new" texts are not really new, except in variations. We think that one of the best portents for improvement in chemistry teaching in the future is the increasing criticism of what has happened to the introductory course: students can locate the d electrons in MnOl- and describe the resonating structures for SO2, but have no idea a t all of what would happen if the two were mixed. We recently read a discussion by Professor Joseph Nordman of Los Angeles Valley College who had this to say: It would seem that the mistake is too much concern far purity (in the chemistry) and too little concern for the way the brain develops information. Chemistry could not and did not spring full grown from first principles as a tour de force of the analytical mind, and our teaching should say so for the sake of theneophyte's orientation. We expend little effort recognizing the pre-eminence of thought, encouraging curiosity and fostering inventiveness in students, partly because we are too busy trying to crowd mathematically dependent theory down their constricted throats . . . . . . The theory the beginner needs is that which he can use for inquiring into and understanding the environment he knows, it being better for him to reason naively and get approximate answers than to be in a whirl of wguely understood advanced concepts and frustrated by not being able to reason at all.
The emphasis here is well placed: the beginning chemistry student should he expected to use the information presented by the course. He should be able to act as a chemist. The information has to be usable. Here is the honesty which so often is missing in the poorly taught courses. To be sure, few students these days are allowed to think that a chemist does his chemistry merely by recall of factual descriptive information. But, the disservice most frequently imposed is the implication that glib manipulation of partially understood and completely unappreciated theory can solve chemical problems. "Regurgitation" is the same anathema, whether it produces the Schroedinger equation or the properties of antimony. I t is a tough job to teach concepts. It is even more difficult when they require a mathematical language. The job is by no means the same for all types of students, or professors. Here is where the lack of realism enters. It does not make sense for the inexperienced teacher with minimal training to think that he must teach a group of future gym teachers about quantum m e c h a ~ c just s because that is in the first course at Cal Tech. Rather, this teacher, whatever his level of competence and chemical experience, can make his course real chemistry for his students by working with concepts he does know in depth, and most importantly in breadth of illustrative application. Then if his students are asked to use the idea in the context of a new problem, they have had an experience closer to what the chemist has.
Change of Editors After June 1, 1967, manusoripts submitted for publication in this Journal should be sent to
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W. T. Lippincott, Editor Journal of Chemical Education McPherson Laboratory, Ohio State University 140 West 18th Avenue Columbus, Ohio 43210
Volume 44, Number 5, May 1967
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