My correspondent teaches a second-year high school course for which he has three objectives: (1) deal with standard topics not included in the first-year course for lack of time; (2) introduce organic and biochemistry; and (3) develop problem-solving abilities by getting the students to work in groups on "real-world" problems. He has made a conscious decision not to teach an advanced-placement course--a decision with which I concurred when he and I discussed it three or four years ago. He asked whether he is doing the right thing. And I asked a twofold question that was very similar. Did I do the right thing when I encouraged him to try the second-year course he proposed? And, am I doing the right thing in my own college-level general chemistry course?

These questions arise because every year a few students return for Thanksgiving break and tell this teacher that although they left high school liking chemistry and even planning to major in it, they have been turned off by their college course. They found the content of their high school course interesting and relevant, it was stimulating to work in groups on real-world problems, and this teacher made it fun to do chemistry. Apparently their college courses did not. Is it unfair to such students to turn them on to chemistry when a teacher knows that they may encounter something much less stimulating and interesting in college? Should there be a truth-in-advertising rule for high school teachers--tell it like it's going to be in college? Are we doing the right thing at the college level?

For about as long as I can remember (which is getting to be a very long time) the content of the first-year college course has been very similar to what is covered in many high school chemistry and AP chemistry courses. When students take college chemistry, they often are bored because we are teaching the same chemistry they had in high school. Or they have a false sense of security, thinking they have already learned everything in the college syllabus and developing poor study habits, only to discover at some point during the first semester that their college course has a different pace and different expectations regarding the depth of understanding required. The worst case is those who have been taught the material before but lack thorough understanding and do not have good study skills and problem-solving skills. These students are often turned off because they are both bored and doing poorly in the college course.

For the past five years I have been teaching a special section of our general chemistry course that caters to the few students who have had no high school chemistry, or who took it some years before and remember very little. Such students, however, constitute only 10–20% of the class, which means that I am constantly concerned about problems of boredom and a false sense of security among the other 80–90%. Although data that we collected when we started this practice implied that putting both groups in the same class was successfully dealing with their different needs, as time goes on it seems to be less and less successful. I am asking myself more and more often whether I am doing the right thing. And not just with respect to placement of students into the course. Both content and pedagogy are open to the same question.

Shouldn't we be including more of the newest, most exciting chemistry in what we teach? Isn't it useful for students to know much more than we normally say about the importance of chemistry in the economy and the applications of chemistry in the real world? Shouldn't we be including a balanced picture of chemistry by including areas such as organic polymers and biochemistry that are often balkanized into courses only selected students will take later in their careers? Shouldn't we be experimenting with pedagogy and evaluating its impact on students ability to recall and use chemical concepts and facts long after our courses are over? Are we collectively doing the right thing?

A year and a half ago I described to a group of elementary and middle school teachers who were attending ICE summer workshops our then-new systemic curriculum initiative, the New Traditions project, and the other similar NSF-funded projects. Common to all of these is new content and pedagogy of the sort I have just alluded to. At that time I suggested to the workshop participants that those of us teaching in colleges and universities had a lot to learn from teachers like themselves about better ways to help students learn chemistry and science in general. I continue to believe that that is true. We need to examine, collectively and cooperatively, the questions I have raised and many others, because we all have a lot to learn from each other. And because there is a lot to be gained by our cooperation and collaborationespecially by our students.

For example, those of us teaching college general chemistry continually complain about having too much material to teach and not enough time to do it justice. But, as noted above, much of that material is also included in the high school course. We argue that students have not learned it thoroughly enough or at sufficient depth, and so it must be done again. But we seldom communicate with high school teachers about this issue to try to arrive at a way we could cooperate to solve the problem. Maybe we could agree to do certain topics only oncein the high school or the college course, but not boththereby leaving room in both courses for new and exciting content or pedagogy that will grab students' interest and maintain it. Maybe this would help us to alleviate the boredom that seems to be turning students off at the introductory college level.

There are many more ways in which communication, cooperation, and collaboration among high school and college teachers would serve our students and our discipline. If we do not actively explore them, are we doing the right thing?

See Letter re: this editorial.