You enter this tutorial undoubtedly wondering about this. You’ve heard students talk about how much fun it is. Others talk about how difficult it is, perhaps even impossible. Will you be up to it? The point of this introductory lecture is to convince you that it’s up to you. It depends upon your mindset more than anything else.
- Chemistry is enjoyable. Even students who have struggled in the past talk about how much they enjoyed the tutorial. You will spend most of your time doing things and talking to your classmates about them. Most students find it a welcome relief in a day filled with routine chores and mundane activities.
- Chemistry is relevant. I’m not really going to elaborate upon this point. I have to assume that you already know that every object has a chemical composition and that every feeling you experience is triggered by chemicals. Most of the ways in which things behave are determined by their chemistries. And the methods we use in this class, the scientific methods, are tremendously useful in any field of study. Chemistry and its methods are everywhere, from the toothpaste you use after you wake up every morning, to the toothpaste you use, after which you go to bed at night.
So then, why shouldn’t you do well?
- Suppose Professor Vanstein is starting his new job as Professor of Chemistry at Atomic University. However, he needs college credits in Extra Terrestrial History in order to teach at A.U. So, while he is designing his chemistry program and teaching each day, he is also taking an Extra Terrestrial History course at night at E.T. College. He hates it. He has so many interesting things that he wants to do with his chemistry program and he has to pull himself away from them to study some silly history course. He didn’t care about history at all. On top of all this … his lab rabbit had bunnies. So by mid-semester he decided to drop the history course and take it at his leisure in the summer.
In the summer he was relaxed and enjoyed being on campus discussing this stuff and he did quite well. In fact, it was a really interesting course and he signed up for another history course the next summer. Thinking back, it had been just a few months earlier that he hated history, and now it was one of his favorite courses. What happened? It was all in his mind. He had left room in his life that summer for a history course and studied it the right way. It went from hell to heaven almost immediately. Given the obvious fact that it is better to enjoy yourself than be thoroughly miserable, have you left sufficient time in your life for a rigorous chemistry course?
- Of course there are reasons why you might not enjoy chemistry even if you leave room for it and are willing to study it the right way. One good reason is that you have not done especially well in your schooling up to now and your skill development has lagged behind. You sense that you are over your head. Well, you are in luck. That’s because I have no expectations of you other than that you are willing to put in the effort and do your best. I’ll give you all the help you need … within my power. In other words, I expect you to travel reasonably far in the course, and if you are beginning well behind some other students, we don’t expect you to finish up even with them.In fact … this is chemistry not a foot race.
As good as this sounds, it probably isn’t going to help you that much. That’s because you are a teen-ager. Let me explain.
- Many teenagers are very fragile. Just a short while back you were a little kid responsible for almost nothing. Quite suddenly you’re in the big time, high school courses, and you’re competing with everyone for high SAT scores, chairs in the orchestra, positions on athletic teams, friends, etc. And of course you want your parents to be proud of you. But who are you? Are you good enough? In about ten years from now, you’ll know just who you are and you’ll know that you are good enough. Who are you now? Some of my former students spent much of their time in hiding and when they came out, what I saw was just a lot of posturing. Five years ago, if you didn’t understand something, you’d ask an adult or your parents. Ten years from now, if you needed to understand something, you’d look for an expert and get advice. But right now, you might well pretend that you have no problem and strut about with confidence and saying things like, "I’m not really interested in this" or perhaps, "it’s pretty easy stuff, but I didn’t feel like studying." What is all of this? This is what I mean by "posturing." Any salsa dancer can tell you that posturing is everything on the dance floor. As a tutor I can tell you, posturing is very destructive to your education.
After a tutorial, students who said not a word during the class time will email or call me to try to understand the material presented. Yet I encourage discussion and questioning during the tutorial. I beg for it. Apparently, these students do not mind admitting their ignorance to the tutor, but refuse to do so before the class. This is one form of "hiding."
Actually, this is a rather advanced one. The norm is to be in hiding from both students and teachers. So what happens to all of those students who did not understand the lecture and who do not ask questions afterwards? There is yet another level to this hiding, one that is more common than you would imagine. It is the student who is hiding from him/her self, who doesn’t want to risk discovering that "I can’t understand this." Day after day, that student’s work is confused and mediocre.
Without fail, when poor evaluations cause parents to get involved and students have to get extra help, students discover that they can understand and their work improves dramatically. Why not come out of hiding now? It takes courage, if you are struggling, to open up during class and ask questions … but you CAN do it.
- But what if you really are "too stupid" to do chemistry? Isn’t that a possibility? Well sure, but we’ll never find that out. After all, despite all of the numbers that are thrown out at you, we haven’t a clue how to measure intelligence in any absolute sense. If the tutor says something that the student doesn’t understand, whose fault is it anyway? The student’s? The tutor? There’s no way to tell really. That’s because there are so many different ways of teaching and learning that it is very complicated for the teacher to optimize the teaching style for each individual learner. That’s why we simply do not judge your intellect. You are good enough for me. I just hope I’m good enough for you. If there is a problem, I simply wish to work together with you to eliminate or reduce the problem.
One thing of which I am sure, after a certain age, intellect declines. I have little doubt that, whatever intelligence is, I had more of it a few years ago than I do now. However, as you age you acquire more experience, so older people can sometimes appear to be really smart. This is an illusion. So then, should I look up to all of you because you might be younger and smarter? I’d rather not. I’d rather we just all accept each other as we are and forget about judging each other. Of course if we were to arm wrestle this afternoon, I’m pretty sure I’d beat you all.
- There’s one other consideration. You might not be a scientific type. Perhaps you are an artist or a musician. You have to take some science, but you are not well skilled or interested in deductive reasoning.
This is the great tragedy of American education. It is a completely fallacious argument. The finest artists and musicians are those with the best-developed minds and a rigorous physical science course is great preparation. The scientist who knows nothing of the arts, of values, of beauty, of sport, of love, is a recognizably sad and empty creature. So too is the artist who knows nothing of the sciences, of structured methods of reasoning, of the creativity of experimental design, of the processes involved in forming hypotheses and testing them in controlled ways, of speaking readily the languages of science and mathematics. What purpose to have excellent artistic technique when you know nothing of the reality of others? The most wonderful writer in the world is not wonderful if he has nothing to write about.
I therefore ask you:
 a. To make room in your lives for a chemistry course
b. To approach me with an open mind
c. To recognize the potential value of this program in your lives
d. To accept yourself, come out of hiding
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