EDITORIALLY SPEAKING EDITOR'S NOTE: The following is taken from the remarks on the theme "Present. Education versus Future Obsolescence" by the Editor at the 93rd Annual Meeting of the Manufacturing Chemists Association, June 3, 1965. The occasion was the presentation of the 1965 College Chemistry Teacher Awards to E. L. Eliel (Notre Dame), A. I. Johnson (McMaater) and the Editor of THIS JOURNAL (Wooster).
w e hear a great deal about how rapidly chemical information is accumulating. This greatly intensifies (notice I do not say "creates") the problems of technical obsolescence for you who keep the chemical industry growing at a faster rate than any other. We share your concern, especially about the problem of obsolescence in trained personnel. For us in the classroom, the problem likewise is intensified by both the pace and the magnitude of modern chemical research. Obviously, we cannot accept the premise that our graduate of today must know twice as much as his alumni brother of 12 years ago just to keep even on entering the profession. After all, the student mind is a constant volume system. Moreover, at least in the undergraduate curriculum, most of us are trying to accomplish the students' introduction to fundamentals in three years instead of four. This allows time (the fourth year) in the undergraduate curriculum for additional electives toward breadth or depth and for learning something about investigative techniques. Foremost in our attack on the problem of future obsolescence of our product is an emphasis on understanding and using concepts rather than on the encyclopedic collection of facts. This really is the only way to build e-inciency either into our course content or, hopefully, into the students' attack on chemical problems. Recognition of this objective has prompted changes in our teaching the introduction to virtually every chemical topic. The high school student is asked by a chapter title of the CHEM Study text "Why do we believe in atoms?" Stoichiometry begins with the mole concept, not with a series of individually applied proportions. The organic chemistry student early learns to recognize consistencies in reaction mechanisms rather than merely to catalog a collection of before-and-afters connected by mysterious arrows over which he may or may not write "cat." Analytical chemistry courses treat the topic of "separation," where precipitation is classed with ion exchange, liquid extraction, and electrodeposition, rather than to devote whole terms to '8 gravimetric analysis." The professor under whom I first studied physical chemistry spoke grandly in his first lecture about the task of the physical chemist being the prediction of the position of chemical equilibrium,
yet free energy was discussed in the final chapter of the text. Now our sophomores and juniors calculate equilibrium constants from spectral data and even some freshmen are beginning to learn that "Entropie strebt einem Maximum zu." I do not join the critics who sing a doleful requiem for descriptive chemistry. Certainly there are courses and some textbooks which have swung the pendulum too far. There are students who have great dexterity at shaping Styrofoam yet do not know that nitric acid reacts with copper. Yet in the well planned course, the imaginative professor uses the most interesting examples of descriptive chemistry-those that correlate the most information. The student, armed with a concept and its illustration, can then extrapolate for a reasonable estimate. Also, he has been required to attain some facility in searching for data. Another hallmark of modern chemical eduction is that along with information about what is known, the students' attention is drawn to questions for which answers are not yet known. The MCA series of openended experiments for high school students perfectly exemplifies this point of view. Its counterparts at the graduate level are the widely adopted cumulative examinations or the proposition system. Undergraduate programs build this emphasis into virtually every laboratory course; many have made an undergraduate research problem a standard requirement. Reports come from everywhere that students a t all levels are able to do independent work in virtually any field of chemistry. The emergence of student imagination and enthusiasm depends on the degree to which the guiding professor has displayed the same qualities. We hope that "asking the right questions rather than merely expecting the right answers" will carry some philosophical implications too. Our modern scientific age is dynamic chiefly because we recognize that our present conclusions are tentative. Reahzation of this fact is brought home to us by the same accelerated research pace which has created the problem of falling behind on what we know. I n no previous age has it been easier to convince a sophomore (the hard nuts to crack!) that science is no more final than it is infallible. There will be plenty for today's sophomores to do when the present generation yields its place in the research laboratory. Thus we hope that our students can he encouraged to develop some attitudes to go along with their working knowledge of fundamental concepts; this may lessen the problems of technical obsolescence when these present students become your future associates. Volume 42, Number 7, July 7 965
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