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THE DEADLY PARALLELISM BETWEEN HIGH-SCHOOL AND COLLEGE COURSES IN CHEMISTRY* P. M. GLASOE,ST. OLA*COLLEGE, NORTHRIELD, MINNESOTA The Committee of Chemical Education of the American Chemical Society has made a valuable contribution to chemistry in its suggested outlines for high-school and first-year college chemistry. The data given on page 912 of the July, 1927, number of THISJOURNAL, however, show that less than half of the high schools reporting pay any attention to the outline. We have no statistics as yet showing how many colleges are adapting their work for first-year students to the suggestions. Statistics given by the snhEDUCATION a t the St. scription department of the JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL Louis convention reveal that a discouragingly small percentage of our chemistry teachers are subscribers. It is therefore a matter of interest to the science of chemistry that every teacher who does appreciate the situaation makes it a point to spread the new spirit of cooperation and co5rdination on every occasion when chemistry teachers meet for discussion of their professional problems. The chemistry situation is quite typical as regards coordination between high-school and college courses. High-school credit in chemistry is accepted for entrance without question hut right there, as far as numerous colleges and universities are concerned, the amenities cease. A great many institutions completely ignore the existence of the subject. The pupils with, as well as without, credit are dumped into the common freshman chemistry hopper and a t the end of the course are ground out with the normal curve quota of A's, B's, C's, etc. Frequently it has happened that the students with high-school credit have ranked among the lower grades, thus giving weight to the suspicion that the high-school year of chemistry was so much time wasted-the course was worthless. Such a ruthless disregard for the time and effort of high-school teachers and pupils can exist only in states and communities where there is a sluggish public spirit. If the colleges be justified in their conclusions and consequent treatment, chemistry ought forever to be barred from the highschool curriculum as a useless and time-wasting exercise. If the colleges be wrong, then high-school teachers, principals, and superintendents ought to rise up and in indignation demand that a different treatment be accorded the subject. In places such recognition has been forced, although the solution of the problem has frequently resulted in an evasion of the issue rather than in constructive improvement. Where such recognition of high-school chemistry has been granted the problem has been solved in one of three ways: *Read before the Division of Chemical Education of The American Chemical Society at the St. Louis Meeting. April 17. 1928.
1. By arranging separate sections for those who have and have not had high-school chemistry-then proceeding to nullify the whole plan by giving to both sections the same course of lectures and identical laboratory work. However, every one who looks past the registration office knows this inno wise alters the situation-high-school chemistry is ignored. Such institutions still proceed on the assumption that the course in high-school chemistry is worthless or nearly so. 2. By giving the same course of lectures to both sections, covering the identical field but varying slightly the laboratory course for students having had the work in high school. This is a recognition of the fact that it might pay better to vary the course and not t o compel the students to repeat the very things they did in the high-school laboratory. 3. By giving two entirely different courses, both as to text and laboratory, to the two sections. We propose t o show that this third method is the only way to deal scientifically and fairly with the problem. Also, we wish t o point out that this is the only method that will serve to the advantage of chemistry as a suhject. We are all desirous of having the student who goes through our courses come out saying, "that was a good course; I advise all freshmen to take it," rather than having him come out with a grouch and a grievance that warn all other students away. Such a student goes out into life with his mind set against chemistry as a tiresomesubject that failed t o interest him after having had one year of high-school and an additional year of college work. What such a student really had was a year of high-school chemistry and a year of high-school chemistry grown up, which he was forced to take in college. How ridiculously true this statement is can be seen by comparing a highschool text in chemistry with a college text, especially if the same author has published both. Take a pair of such books; it will require less than five minutes to establish the deadly parallelism. Turn the leaves of the two books simultaneously: the chapter headings are the same, the same line drawings appear, the same etchings, the same industries are illustrated. If you examine the laboratory manuals you find the same instructions, the same experiments, the same methods. They both direct the preparation of oxygen, hydrogen, chlorine, nitric acid. The text may he the very best published, but consider the predicament of a student who, having used this author's high-school text, upon registering in the college chemistry course, finds himself confronted with his college text. The deadly parallelism will surely get in its deadly work. Such a situation must of necessity mean a serious blow to the interest in chemistry. The seriousness of it becomes apparent when we examine it in the light of human nature and common sense. Very few people, as a rule, care t o hear the same concert or read a book the
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second time. If a man insists upon tellimg you the same thing twice you thimk there is something the matter with him-at any rate you are not interested. In short, we must have variety ourselves. The subject matter may be the same, but i t must be treated in a new and interesting manner. In other words, in the ordinary walks of life, we object to any one springing a repetition on us, be i t humorous story, book, lecture, or concert, but the very thing we object to for ourselves we propose to force our college freshmen into doing. They have had a chapter on oxygenwe give them an identical one in college; for the chapter on hydrogenwe give them a duplicate; they studied in high school about hydrochloric acid, chlorine, nitrogen, the atmosphere, etc.-we hand them the same chapters in college and expostulate on the general disinterestedness and modem-day lethargy of college freshmen. Without ascertaining what experiments have been performed in the high-school laboratory (the students probably would not be able to enumerate them for us anyhow) we prescribe the orthodox course of experiments in first-year chemistry and more fuel is added to the fires of our indignation as the students refuse to become enthusiastic about heating iron filings and sulfur, holding a piece of burning magnesium ribbon, distilling ten drops of nitric acid from saltpeter, etc. In a recent textbook of psychology we read: "A favorable attitude or disposition fosters its own growth and tends to perpetuate itself and thus i t becomes a permanent state of mind . . . . . . Learning is hard a t best, and one should not make i t more difficult by stimulating the wrong attitude." In any other line of life, we would not expect to create the right attitude by subjecting a person to excessive repetition. From the pedagogical point of view, educators are even now objecting to "making up conditions." They hold that there is a far deeper principle a t stake than that of the removal of a condition mark from the books of the college registrar. The real educational question a t issue is, will it harm or benefit the student? It is not so much the record that needs correction as the student's mental condition. Does the forced repetition of subject matter, now stale and often distasteful, benefit the student or will it produce a mind-set which becomes a permanent liability for life? Surely we are inviting the wrong state of mind, a wrong attitude toward chemistry, when we force students to retrace every step taken in high school. Very often consequences are not only unfortunate, they are disastrous. Students pick up the textbook or listen to the first lecture and are shocked to find that the material is all familiar. That is just what they had in high-school chemistry. Whether or not they could pass a test in it, one thimg they are sure of-they have had it before. This result of the first contact with college chemistry produces a mind-set; it creates an attitude. These chemistry lectures are not to be taken too seriously-as
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for the laboratory experiments, they are all dull, monotonous, "old stuff." The consequences are: (1) a feeling of injustice a t being compelled to retrace is aroused; (2) an attitude of sophistication and self-complacency develops; (3) a process of slipping and sliding is induced, finally resulting, all too often, in a D or worse. One thing has been accomplished which is both positive and lasting; an attitude of permanent and violent antipathy to chemistry has been established. As far as the students are concerned"never again!" From the psychological point of view, therefore, it is very unscientific to ignore the students' previous training. Why has the high-school course in chemistry gone begging so long for recognition? By recognition something more than the mere acceptance of the credit for entrance is meant. The course should be a pre-requisite leading to a course in college, entirely different from the grown-up highschool course. Surely we as college teachers are not so barren of initiative and devoid of ideas that we cannot devise a course in general-principles of chemistry which shall make use of what the students have retained from high school, whether i t be much or little, and yet be sufficiently unlike the preparatory treatment that it will not lead to the bankruptcy of chemistry. The course should make use of the principles already laid down and open up the possibilities of our science instead of curtailing and stifling the interest. The failure to give such recognition comes from perfectly natural causes. We have run into a first-year chemistry rut. It begins with distinguishing between physical and chemical change and ends with the study of uranium, element number 92. We have come to consider i t inevitable. We do not see the desirableness of getting out of it. Every teacher is anxious to find in his students a goodly basis of prerequisites upon which to build his course. Pailiig to find them, he condemns the preparatory training whose business it was to lay the foundation. Too often the college teacher has advanced so far beyond his own secondary school days that he has forgotten both the method and the substance of what he went through, but he makes rigid requirements as to the preliminary knowledge a student must bring with him into freshman chemistry. Let us be reasonable. If a highschool graduate does not know how to write the equation for copper plus nitric acid or cannot show how potassium permanganate breaks down, let us ask ourselves the question--could we have written the formula for the value of z in the quadratic equation one year after we "finished algebra? How many of us can extract square root, to say nothing about cube root? As for history most of us should probably have to confess that we are in the same class as the student who remembered only one date in church history, but had forgotten what happened in that year. After a year's work of high-school chemistry there is bound to be a minimum residuum of terms, facts, and figures which we should take for
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granted and expect the students to possess. They have a chemical vernacular, and understand elementary chemical language. In a mixed class of the two kinds of students i t is necessary to begin by teaching the language of chemistry-definitious, spelling, explanations of the simplest terms. The high-school graduate with chemistry credit has his intelligence insulted by listening to the teaching of the ABC's. On the other hand, in a section of advanced students it is not necessary to define element, chemical change, valence, Boyle's law, atomic and molecular weights-these can be taken for granted. The students should be made to realize this. Then if they are not in possession of the facts, the responsibility is theirs, and they must look up the high-school text and review the prerequisites. The teacher has sufficient opportunity to test the students' knowledge and can purposely review that material which seems necessary. By such a course the high-school student feels that he is promoted instead of marking time; he makes use of all he brings with him, his memory is stimulated, his curiosity aroused, his self-respect is maiutained-in short, chemistry is being taught on the basis of good psychology and correct pedagogy-the minds are stimulated instead of being rendered stagnant and indolent.
