Editorial pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc
What Do You Do? I Teach Chemistry! Gregory T. Rushton* Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, Georgia 30144, United States ABSTRACT: Championing my profession as a member of the chemistry teaching community is not something I have always done well, but over time, I am recognizing how proud I am to be a part of it. As a new precollege associate editor, this editorial shares a bit of my history as well as my hopes for the Journal and the community JCE serves.
KEYWORDS: Elementary/Middle School Science, High School/Introductory Chemistry, Public Understanding/Outreach
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we can provide to best meet your professional expectations so that you can serve your increasingly diverse and challenging student populations with the highest quality learning experiences possible. If you believe that JCE’s precollege team understands your needs and can meet them, then you will likely continue the conversation with us as you have with Erica and Laura in the past. The success of the Journal’s precollege team depends on your trust in us, and I hope we can promote that trust through our efforts in listening and acting on what we hear from you. Over the next few months, I intend to share some ideas with you about directions the precollege team of the Journal may take and what new initiatives are being considered. Throughout my involvement as a JCE precollege associate editor, I encourage you to provide your feedback about those ideas. Two of the first topics that I will most likely address are the substantive changes to the advanced placement (AP) chemistry curriculum1 and the rollout of the Next Generation Science Standards2 as they are expected to influence what and how we chemistry educators teach in our classrooms in ways many of us may not be fully prepared for at present. In closing, I offer this brief account of my school and teaching background to help you to get to know me a bit, and to serve as a starting point for some productive conversations about the future direction of the precollege efforts at JCE. Although born in Phoenix, Arizona, I grew up in Southern California and engaged in typical sports of that region: surfing, swimming, and water polo. Most of my friends in high school stayed in California for college, but I decided to try Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, where I began as a chemical engineering major in 1989. I am proud to say I lasted almost two whole Pennsylvanian winters before I gave in to homesickness and
ave you noticed when meeting people for the first time that we are often given the opportunity to share the news that we teach chemistry for a living? How many different ways have you found yourself answering that question depending on who was asking? After several uncomfortable exchanges in my early years of high school teaching that included responses from strangers such as, “I hated chemistry!” or “I never understood chemistry!”, I found myself dropping the “chemistry” part of “chemistry teacher” in my job title most of the time... and I became simply a “teacher”. If further probing ensued, substituting “science” for “chemistry” helped me to avoid having to apologize for the person’s traumatic high school or college experience that I felt somehow partially responsible for simply by my association with others who cared about the numbers 6.02 × 1023, 22.4, and 273.15 as much as I did. I look back with regret on those choices to deny, rather than embrace, defend, and advocate for that identity as a chemistry teacher. Today I still have those same encounters, although now it is rare that I give a second thought to enthusiastically responding, “I teach chemistry!” when asked. The difference? Now I recognize the value and effect that the intense and intentional interactions over the years with my students, colleagues, and other stakeholders (parents, administrators, etc.) can have; how teaching can stimulate personal, emotional, intellectual, and even spiritual development in many profound and rewarding ways. Simply put, I believe that I am a much better friend, son, brother, husband, and father today because I have been a chemistry teacher these past 15 years, and it is not difficult for me to tell others how I and others have benefited from that decision. I share this observation with you because in my role with the Journal it is critical for me to learn about the needs of the thousands of talented, dedicated, passionate chemistry teachers that this publication seeks to serve. Collectively, as the precollege team, we are anxious to learn what kinds of content © 2012 American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.
Published: March 16, 2012 563
dx.doi.org/10.1021/ed300019g | J. Chem. Educ. 2012, 89, 563−564
Journal of Chemical Education
Editorial
transferred to USC (University of Southern California), where the waves were only a few miles from campus and I could see my family more than twice a year. In 1993, I completed a B.A. in chemistry degree and worked as an environmental chemist until I moved to Columbia, South Carolina, to get married and pursue my dream of teaching high school chemistry. In Columbia, I taught at two different high schools, one in a rural school on the outskirts of town, and one in the suburbs, for a total of seven years. I mostly taught on-level, honors, and AP chemistry; I also taught some other subjects, such as physics, physical science, and statistics. During that time, I went back to school to earn a Masters in Education degree in secondary science, and I was awarded National Board Certification in 2000. In 2001, while still teaching, I was admitted to the doctoral program at the “other” USC, the University of South Carolina, where I studied physical organic chemistry and shared our group’s work through two undergraduate laboratory experiments published in this Journal.3,4 I did not necessarily intend to leave high school teaching when I was finished with graduate school; however, upon finishing (Ph.D.) in 2004, I was offered what has turned out to be pretty close to the dream position. The college of science dean at Kennesaw State University at that time wanted the chemistry department to take a more active role in recruiting, preparing, and retaining chemistry teachers and wanted to hire faculty into positions to do so. For the last eight years, now with two additional full-time faculty devoted to chemistry education, I have been privileged to work with a large chemistry teacher preparation program and many secondary teachers in the local school systems throughout the metropolitan Atlanta area to promote high quality teaching and learning in our K−12 chemistry classrooms. I am excited to be a part of what is happening at the Journal and in the precollege chemistry community and invite your questions or comments at
[email protected].
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AUTHOR INFORMATION
Corresponding Author
*E-mail:
[email protected].
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REFERENCES
(1) College Board AP Chemistry Curriculum Framework, 2013− 2014 (copyright 2011). http://media.collegeboard.com/ digitalServices/pdf/ap/11_3461_AP_CF_Chemistry_WEB_110930. pdf (accessed Mar 2012). (2) Next Generation Science Standards Home Page. http://www. nextgenscience.org/ (accessed Mar 2012). (3) Rushton, G. T.; Furmanski, B.; Shimizu, K. D. Plastic Antibodies: Molecular Recognition with Imprinted Polymers. An Introductory Polymer Chemistry Laboratory Investigation. J. Chem. Educ. 2005, 82 (9), 1374−1377. (4) Rushton, G. T.; Burns, W. G.; Lavin, J. M.; Chong, Y. S.; Pellechia, P.; Shimizu, K. D. Determination of the Rotational Barrier for Kinetically Stable Conformational Isomers via NMR and 2D TLC. J. Chem. Educ. 2007, 84 (9), 1499−1501.
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dx.doi.org/10.1021/ed300019g | J. Chem. Educ. 2012, 89, 563−564
