letters Teaching: Art or Science?
To the Editor: The recent article by Pestel [J. Chem. Educ. 1990, 67, 4901 echos those that I've seen in this and otherjournals by chemical educators who have stated the position that teaching is a science and not an art. The implied reason for this position seems to be that if teaching is an art, it is not worthy of study. The lack of an objective, systematic procedure for teaching is disturbing to manv educational researchers whose professional &re hinges on finding just such an obiective answer. It is possible that others are frustrated that teaching does not-follow the same logical pattern and sequence as science. I contend that at least good teaching is an art and that those dispassionate observers who wish to place it in the realm of science are missing the crucial subjective (and in some cases, subconscious) aspects of teaching that are the difference between a technieally c o m p e t e n h d an excellent teacher. The implication of many who object to teaching as an art is that an art does not need to be taught. Anyone who has a familiaritv with the "arts". such as music. drama. or sculpture can attest to the lon; hoursof learnkg technique and oractice that eo into the masterv of the basics of each field: Despite this;all the practice and technical expertise in the world cannot make a eood musician. a good artist. or a good actor. The true metce of the artist can only be derived from both practice in the field and a n undefmahle something inside'the person, an artistic gift if you will. The technical side of the art is important. but not sufficient to make the good artist. If, in fact, teaching were a science, then any person with the mental capacity to learn the subject could become an excellent teacher. kssuming that our chemical education departments are not accepting mental deficients into their programs, then all students who successfully complete a program of chemical education should be superior teachers.-~akenfurther, we could even say that any prospective teacher who has undertaken to learn and apply the current research on science teaching should become an excellent teacher. A short look around any common school facultv will show that this oosition is com~letelverroneous. h i t h e r ramification of ieaching as science s: that there would be one or a t most a small class of methods that would work best at conveying the information. If there is a n obiective explanation to the problem of information transfer that can be universally gpplied to all students, then whv do so manv different strateeies seem to work equally well? I t is a pretty good guess &at if we polled the 100 or so winners of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching for this year, we would find about 100 different strategies for teaching. Yes, there would be some similarities, but it would be the differences that made each of them the wonderful teacher they are. Additionally, we could find teachers who were not effective using these same techniques. Once again, the teaching as science practitioners would eliminate all but a few of these excellent teaching strategies once they determined which were (from their data) "the best". In short, while a science education department can teach cognitive science or discipline strategies just as well as the chemistry department can teach the gas laws, they cannot teach us to be good teachers. Whether a person can effec-
tivelv communicate with a proup of adolescents is not simply imatterof plugL"n(: in o; thecorrect model ofcognitive it also rrauires the "triR" ofcommunication and psvcholo~~, e m p a t h G ~ u it t is j&t as equa?ly fallacious to denigrate teaching because it is an art. The role of the education departments should be the same as that of the fine arts departments: to teach basic techniques that will allow the student to reach whatever inborn potential that they have, and to show potential teachers mistakes that have been made in the past so that they might avoid them. The education departments must be just as willing to admit, however, that they will be teaching some who do not have the artistic giR and will be lousy teachers. In the final analysis, we can teach techniques, we can sometimes show things that don't work, we can teach those things which might allow a potentially good teacher to turn into a good teacher, but we cannot teach people to develop the empathic and communicative skills that make the superior teacher. Keith Svmcox
To the Editor: Mv response to the letter bv Svmcox gets right to the hear%of many of our problems in science &cat&: fundamental differences in the definition and understandine of the terms "teaching" and "science". Svmcox uses the terminolom "convevinz the information", "information transfer", axd "effectively communicatin? when discussing teaching. These phrases do not adeqLately describe teaching. ~ e a c h i nis~much more than this; it is whatever occurs in the classroom that generates learning, which means students interacting withinformation and developing the ability to extend and apply .. . that information to newand usefulareas. Educational researchers are not looking for some "systematic procedure" for transferring information, but for some applicable principles that will-serve as guides in im~rovinnthe aualitv and auantitv of learnine that occurs in the cla~srm& he possibility of good teachkg is enhanced when the teacher has some sense of the nature of the mental interaction required for learning to occur. Here is where the science comes in, we are still learning about the process of learning-cognitive science. It is this growing branch of knowledge that allows us to experiment with teaching strategies that are a logical extension of this information. Symcox states that viewing teaching as a science would mean that "any person with the mental capacity to learn the subject could become an excellent teacher." Based on this statement and others, Symcox appears to think of science as some cold, dispassionate, inflexible set ofrules that generates a single, inalterable procedure for a particular task. This is precisely the view of science that, as educators, we need to dispel. Science is a way of knowing, a dynamic system for gaining knowledge, a strategy for evaluating and improving knowledge or practices of any type. Teaching is, or should be, a science in the respect that it deserves to be practiced by those who have some knowl-
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Volume 69 Number 2 February 1992
169
edge of the learning process. This knowledge base will allow the teacher to experiment with and evaluate strategies in the classroom designed to enhance learning. Teachers need not, should not, be limited to "thinking" or "hoping" or " f e e l i d that their teaching is effective. The fact that teaching is a science allows us-to function in a much more certain world. Our teaching strategies can be designed based on our developing understanding! of the principles of learning and then evaluated by objective means. Defining teaching a s a science does not mean that a teacher should not possess the gifts of communication and empathy. Undoubtedly these are valuable attributes for teachers, but they are not sufficient for effective teaching. The trulv effective teacher. the one who can eenerate learning in the classroom, will be both a good &&tist and a eood artist. The artistnr -.however. should be limited to the flare and creativity used in practicing the science of teaching. ~
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Beverly C. Pestel Assistant to the Dean School of Science and Technology University of Wisconsin-Parkside Kenosha, Wl 53141
Scaling Grades
To the Editor:
I had always thought that my methods of scalinggrades were somewhat within the mainstream until I read the article by Maloy [Maloy, J. T. J. C'hem. Educ. 1990, 67,414415 I. For over 20 years, I have followed a "no curving policv". 1Ion.ever. if most of mv bctter students miss the same questions, I dismiss those"uestions as perhaps being too dimcult. MY examinations are a mixture of essav, problem solving,-and multiple-choice questions. For simplicity, however, let's consider a 20-question multiple-choice examination: Assume that most of my top students missed the same five questions in this 20-question test. I would then determine the examination grades by dividing the number of correct answers by 15 rather than by 20. This approach gives credit to students who correctly answered these difficult questions but doesn't penalize those who missed it. However. this ao~roachraises the mades of better students more thanit does poorer stude&. Students who answer 15 auestions correctlv have their mades raised from a 75% (15 out of 20) to 106% (15 out of'i51, an increase of 25%. Students who answer four auestions correctlv have their grades raised from a 20% (4 out of 20) to a 27% (4 out of 15. an increase of onlv 7%. This is the opposite of what ~alo'y'smethod does or what Maloy im&es that most teachers do. Maloy says that his technique encourages students who did ~ o o r"l vsince it raises their erades the most. Mv feelings, however, are that students whoget pades of 20': are orobablv euiltv of insufficient studvine. These students heed a iogering jolt to improve their"st&y habits. To encourage students who do poorly on a single examination, I tell them that I will overlook that single grade. I have no problem dropping a single, inconsistent grade. I do not feel that I can justify dropping a low grade when half of the grades are poor. Such a low grade correctly reflects the student's overall performance in the course.
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Ronald DeLorenzo Middle Georgia College Cochran, GA 31014
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Journal of Chemical Education
To the Editor: Even though I may yearn wistfully for those days when Ronald DeLorenzo's comments regarding my grade scaling paper might have been more appropriate, I cannot agree with his "no curving" (but forgive and forget) policy for this time and place. First of all. if art is to imitate life. it is not very realistic; anyone who has ever had to work fo; aliving knows that, while they may forgive. they never forget. More importantly, however, this method 0: resolving
