EDITORIALLY SPEAKING
o n e of the favorite winter and spring sports of chemists seems to be working for the passage of local school bond issues. An informal survey of those "what-are-you-doing-now?" conversations which bring friendships of former years up-to-date a t professional meetings has revealed this not-very-surprising bit of information. Chemists as a group take their role as citizens and parents seriously. As professional men and women they not only recognize these problems but are willing to work a t their solutions. Although it is not new to find non-academic chemists talking about educational problems, it is new to find them talking so much in terms of numbers and magnitude instead of the favorite topic of recent years, qualit,y of instruction. Our guess is that this represents no extensive pendulum swing but rather a down-to-earth realization of what is going on in our crowded classrooms across the country. It probably is typical of the kind of facing-the-facts that citizens must do everywhere. Chemists who want these facts would do well t o listen to their counterparts in the schools-the chemistry teachers. Recently Samuel W. Bloom of the Science Department a t Benjamin Franklin High School in Rochester put some reflections into words for readers of the Genessee Valley LSP, "CHEMunicatious." We quote his remarks about pupils and teachers: ¥
I t is a normal psychological p a t t e n for adults to dwell upon their own school experiences of a former generation. Such persons do not recognize the impact nor the significance of the changes in the size of the school population since their day. A generation ago, the high school population was relatively homogeneous, with college as the objective. Today, our public school children include the able and the less able, the physically handicapped, the mentally retarded, and the college preparatory pupil. This is the audience in the typical high school today. A teacher of science must provide appropriate expcricncea for all pupils. He must develop in the pupil an appreciation of the values of science, the ability to think ohjectivcl,v, the ability to draw valid conclusions from data, and an appreciation for the function of science as it relates to man's future welfare. Moreover, a science teacher must provide a stimulating, provocative program of studies for those pupils with science potential, pupils canable of handliner the more abstruse conceDts. As future citi-
science in all children, a formidable task. The silhouette of the science teacher is generally vague.
He
is not just a physics teacher, a chemistry teacher, or a biology teacher. The scienc'o teacher must be a generalist in order to meet the needs of the present-day high school population. The science teacher should be well-grounded in subject nxitter without being a narrow specialist; he should have depth in one field and breadth in the others. Few schools are large enough to provide a schedule exclusively in one science; the teacher must be prepared to teach several sciences. Even if the school were large enough, it is debatable whether a teacher could lecture five straight hours per day on one subject and remain effective as a t,eachcr Equally as important as subject matter is the ability of the teacher to communicate with his pupils. The teacher must he able both to interest and to encourage pupils in science. He must know adolescent psychology, understand and be sympathetic to children, and must be familiar with the techniques of conveying information. Without those professional skills, a teacher would prove ineffectual in the classroom. Members of the scientific community frequently try to compare high school teaching with college teaching. A valid comparison between college and high school teaching cannot be made. A college professor may have as few as nine pupil-contact hours per week. Compare this with the 25 contact hours of the high school science teacher. Moreover, the college teacher has assistants who set up the demorislrations, prepare and maintain the equipment, and clean up after each lecture. The high school teacher is on his own. He has no labomtoy assistant; he mixes his own chemical solutions; he sots up his own demonstrations; he maintains his own equipment; sometimes he even moves from room to room to meet a class. The college professor meets a group of selected individuals, selected in accord with the policy of the college. The high school teacher meets heterogeneous groups with a range of ability in consonance with the norms of the general population. When all factors are considered, the high school science teacher should bc commended for any S U C C ~ S Sa t all in meeting the objectives of the science program.
Tomorrow's citizens are in school today. Some will decide there to become scientists: all will learn to varying degrees the place of science in the culture of today. The scientific community owes its support t o those who are its educational vanguard, the high school science teachers. Quality in education need not be compromised by attacking the problems of quantity. The professional scientist can help most by keeping his goal high and his approach realistic. He can never take the place of the science teacher, even for the exceptional student. Nor can he tell the teacher what to do. He can listen, advise, and cooperate. We urge readers to join the many who are realistically getting the facts and then getting busy on programs of sympat,hetic support.
Volume 37, Number 6, June I960
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