WICHTERLE, Kamil
VSB - Technical University of Ostrava, tr. 17.listopadu, 70833 Ostrava Poruba, Czech Republic, wih15@vsb.cz, http://www.fmmi.vsb.cz/cz/katedry/kat617.html
Abstract: In the past time in the Czech Republic, there were built artificial barriers within Universities where Schools of Science were separated from Engineering Schools and these two, in turn, had no impact on the training of future high school teachers. One of the subjects that suffered most harms was the teaching of chemistry. Beginning from grammar schools, little accent is given to understanding omnipresent phenomena in manufacturing technologies and in the daily lives of all people. Due to a closed loop, numbers of teachers have no experience with chemical technology. A few of students can profit from teaching modern concepts of chemistry fundamentals, while for the others it is simply a parroting of definitions and rules meaningless without the knowledge of advanced physics and mathematics. As concerns the university students of curriculum, some specialization requires more chemistry, some less. However, any B.Eng. should be able to understand just these "difficult, dirty and dangerous"chemical processes and should be also able to read chemical literature and to communicate with chemists and chemical engineers. With respect to a little space left for chemistry in non-chemical engineering faculty curricula, the most complicated problem is the selection what not to teach.
Keywords: chemistry, technical universities, high schools
While, based on an international study, Czech children aged 14 occupy the top spot in the world in the knowledge of science, the adult population in this country lags behind and it is overtaken by most industrialized countries. A good teaching tradition was wasted during the past forty years of imposed separation of institutes engaged in industrial technology, institutions of higher learning, and research establishments. Artificial barriers were also built in the universities where Schools of Science were separated from Engineering Schools, and these two, in turn, had no impact on the training of high school teachers.
One of the subjects that suffered most harms was chemistry. Like in other subjects, extend of the knowledge increases exponentially here. At the beginning of 20th century, it was possible to master nearly the whole chemistry (Fig.1) and all this area was presented to the students, even in high schools. Now, this is practically impossible even during the full-scale university course of chemistry. There are two particular areas belonging to the education of chemists and chemical engineers. We can see that the chemists in the faculties of sciences have a deeper knowledge of chemical physics fundamentals, however they have no technology education. On the other side, the chemical engineers have only a general knowledge of the chemistry itself however they are more acquainted with an application of physical chemistry in engineering and technology.
Under these circumstances the question arises what to teach and what not to teach in chemistry for non-chemical Engineering schools, where the space for chemistry is limited. Our Department of Chemistry prepares students in curricula of the Faculty of Metallurgy and Material Engineering, Faculty of Mining and Geology, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Faculty of Civil Engineering. Some of our experience is presented in the paper. By our opinion, a key problem is in previous education of students registered here, which indicate demand of reforms in high school chemistry.
Fig. 1. Scheme of chemical science and engineering and current extent of education
The system of chemical education in Czech Republic is apparent in the Fig.2. The main line of preparation for university education is through Grammar schools providing a general education. Large percentage of Technical schools graduates (the schools originally intended to prepare foremen for industry and medium-level laboratory staff) continues the education in universities. There are also several industrial schools where the graduates are approved to apply for university studies. Actually, in this country does not exist a unified graduate examination, moreover chemistry does not belong to the subject of graduate exams at most of the high schools.
Disastrous lack of chemical education is not perceived by the institutions of higher learning that specialize in chemistry and/or chemical engineering. Here, the situation is somewhat better because the students who registered there came, presumably, with some interest in chemistry and are, therefore, better motivated. Here, the curriculum allows also for different facets of chemistry to be better exposed and to heal the wounds suffered in the high schools. More complex situation prevails in other types of Engineering Schools where the students were not sufficiently exposed to chemistry.
There is another catch in high schools education, which is connected with the education of chemistry teachers. The most of them are graduated in faculties of sciences in the separate program of chemical pedagogy. The scheme in Fig.3 shows a closed loop, which is practically unaffected by demands of industry and applied research.
Fig. 2. Scheme of chemical education in the Czech Republic
This closed loop started years ago with an idea that any high school student can master large extent of contemporary chemistry on the basis of modern theoretical concepts. On the surface it appeared that the introduction of modern concepts in the teaching of chemistry would be beneficial. It turned out, however, that these concepts cannot be understood without the knowledge of advanced physics and mathematics and that their meaning is not comprehensible without some knowledge of basic chemistry. Those professors who did not quite mastered the underlying philosophy of these concepts, were not in the position to bridge over this gap and, as a result, they reduced teaching of chemistry to the parroting of meaningless definitions and rules.
Fig. 3. The system of chemistry teachers preparation in the Czech Republic
The "modern" concept of chemistry teaching is somewhat unique. Nobody starts teaching of physics with the relativity theory. First, principles of Galileo mechanics are presented and everyone can understand simple mechanical laws. Later the advanced theories are presented as a generalization suitable for special conditions. In chemistry, all simple elder theories are considered to belong to alchemy while the magic orbitals are declared as something very definite. Students are e.g. forced to memorize the Schroedinger equation under the conditions when they do not know anything on partial differential equations and problems of their solution.
Further aggravation is due to a harmful policy of the Schools of medicine who misused the chemistry examination to test the mechanical memory of their applicants. It is thus not surprising that chemistry became the most hated subject. With the exception of a handful of graduates from the best secondary schools, the results are disastrous.
Chemical science should be presented as a playground for those who wish to engage in creative thinking. Chemistry offers a unique opportunity to confront advanced theories with sophisticated experiments. It has to be understood that new discoveries and inventions are still possible in chemistry. We can only hope that, in time, the dogmatic approach to teaching chemistry will be overcome. Then, and only then, natural sciences will again become one of the favorite subjects and the career in science and technology will again become attractive for young, bright people. Such approach requires a different preparation of teachers with more impact to engineering education.
The level of chemistry knowledge is considerably different among the graduates from High Schools. Some of them do not know practically anything. The graduates from Grammar Schools have the best preparation in mathematics, physics and languages and in chemistry fundamentals. They are well prepared for university training to become high school teachers. Anyhow, their knowledge of industrial chemistry is unsatisfactory, sometimes they know mainly the obsolete technologies abandoned years ago. Apparently, their education may benefit if the practical chemistry is accented again.
Therefore, chemistry on the Engineering schools has to be taught since the beginning. Quite different principle should be applied to show chemistry as a way of understanding its impact to the whole spectrum of non-chemical manufacturing technologies.
Chemistry in Technical Universities needs to be modified with respect to the small space left for its training. The requirement of engineering practice, simple calculations, safety problems etc should be emphasized. It is necessary to free students from some dogmatic approach, which has been developed in the closed loop of teacher's education. Details of molecular chemistry e.g. should be left for those who are intended to do research in this branch. On the other side, the knowledge of practical chemistry should be extended. In principle, this range coincides with general knowledge of 1930 as shown in Fig.1, some more physical chemistry will help.
The chemistry curriculum in such a fashion can also demonstrate the usefulness and omnipresence of chemistry in the nature and in the daily lives of all people as well. Concept of "difficult, dirty and dangerous" should be substituted by the belief that just chemistry can solve complex of energy and environment problems.