Realistic orientation in chemical education
The general question of the roles of chemical education is briefly discussed. A principal focus of this meeting is directed at problems that occur as students move from the lower schools to colleges and universities. I will try to help set the stage for our discussions by examining the general question of the roles of chemical education in the societies in which we live and seek to educate our young. I know that the subject is so broad and complex that I cannot possibly do a truly satisfactory analysis. Yet, I believe that we must make the effort occasionally, If we do not make the effort, our discussions about the teaching of chemistry will become sterile exercises in game-playing, like the study of strategy in the game of chess. There are times when I long to teach chess rather than chemistry, because dynamic education in chess can be determined almost completely without looking beyond the game itself. THE AIM OF EDUCATION At every stage of the educational process, responsible educators should ask: 'Where does it lead?'; 'What are the goals of our students?'; 'Is our presentation reasonably honest?'; 'How much of our present practice is dictated by tradition rather than common sense?'; and, 'Are we guilty of teaching in aphorisms as a substitute for real logic?' Although we should ask the questions, we cannot expect to find definitive answers. The best answer to any of the questions will surely change from year to year. Moreover, the questions are exceedingly complex. Perhaps this is one reason that scientific educators tend to stay away from them. We are trained almost from birth to regard study of complicated, unanswered problems as unscientific. The notion that we deal with hard evidence and hard answers can be stimulating and comforting, but can also lead to severe perturbation of our natural missions. If we restrict our teaching to topics in which the hard question—hard answer criterion seems to apply, we will focus on a series of remotely related, small problems. At all levels of education, we defend our choice of subject matter on the grounds that it is 'basic'. Yet, if we look in detail at what is taught, the question forever arises, 'To what is this material basic?' The naive assumption, that nearly everything taught in a course must be basic because traditionally it has been there, is widespread. We find it in the eighth-grade science courses in