Editorials

Education-enemy #1: Mobile phones

Some of you may remember when smoking was permitted just about anywhere. My high school had an on-campus smoking area — the “butt lounge”. Author: Michael P Jansen, Crescent School, Toronto, Ontario

The agony and the ecstasy*: Avogadro and Chem 13 News Exams

Chemistry students around the world have written the Avogadro and Chem 13 News Exams, prepared by the late Dr. Carey Bissonnette for many years. Author: Michael P Jansen, Crescent School, Toronto, Ontario

Eventually . . .

Let me tell you a story. With any luck there will be a point. Author: Michael P Jansen, Crescent School, Toronto, Ontario

Job descriptions

Job descriptions are a good thing. Whether you clean the streets or transplant hearts, it’s beneficial to know exactly what you’re to do. It informs — and protects — you and your clients and your boss. Author: Michael P Jansen, Crescent School, Toronto, Ontario

My approach to laboratory work — and everything else

A student cannot learn what he or she doesn’t understand

You may have heard me rant against formal lab reports. I have no time for this waste of time. Having high school students copy a list of equipment/chemicals, regurgitate a recipe and write what they were supposed to observe strikes me — and my students — as pointless. Author: Michael P Jansen, Crescent School, Toronto, Ontario

Thank you . . . or blank you

I am the Head of Crescent School’s Science Department. Before you get all impressed by this lofty title and the attendant responsibilities, I’ll toss a little full disclosure your way: no one else wanted it. Author: Michael P Jansen, Crescent School, Toronto, Ontario

The power of empirical evidence

As chemistry teachers, we have to explain things. Complicated things, with complicated explanations. Then, these complicated explanations work their way into our students’ brains. Author: Michael P Jansen, Crescent School, Toronto, Ontario

Open-book, collaborative quiz: Recipe for engagement

I’ve written about incentivizing students as a way towards engagement. I recently hit upon a great idea — a real brain wave. AP Chemistry students completed a challenging lab where they carried out (and analyzed) a bunch of redox reactions.

Make me an offer…

Michael Jansen gives his approach to some of the struggles that face teachers.

We need to think like economists

Yesterday, I heard a student bragging about the thousands of hours he spent playing a certain on-line game. That’s right, folks, you read correctly — thousands…

Once in a Blue Moon

The saying, “Once in a Blue Moon” refers to two full moons occurring within the same month, a rarity. This recently occurred this past January 2018. The actual moon appearing blue in color occurs from time to time as well.

The launch of Chem 13 News online publication

Fifty years ago Chem 13 News magazine started as a free newsletter published by the Chemistry Department at the University of Waterloo and now, with the help of high school teachers around the world, we are moving to publish material online with free access.

Why not start a Chemistry Education Research Group?

In spite of everything that I don’t know about chemistry, which would fill a significant portion of the internet, I’m not a fan of being told how to teach.

Dry-erase markers — and the teachable moment

I just had the most wonderful Grade 11 Chemistry lesson that really took off in the final few minutes. The topic was an introduction to solubility — “like dissolves like”.

Joy of joys!

I know many of you will share my feelings of indescribable goodness when an experiment turns out super-well. Let me share . . .

ACCN guest article

[This is reprinted from the fall 2017 issue of ACCN, The Canadian Chemical News, www.cheminst.ca/magazine. We thought readers would be interested in hearing what Michael Jansen, a high school teacher and regular Chem 13 News columnist, has to say to the Chemical Institute of Canada (CIC) — similar to the American Chemical Society and Royal Society of Chemistry.

What’s up with the bell?

A few years back, I got for my classroom a small bell, the kind that hotels have on the front desk that you “ding” for service.

Good relationships

Let me tell you about Brandon. He didn’t have the greatest reputation coming out of grade 10: lacklustre engagement with an attitude to match. In Grade 11 Chemistry, it didn’t take long for me to see that his “rep” was well-earned.

Lab safety & common sense — not mutually exclusive

In the September issue of this fabulous publication there is an idea for a first-day activity, taken from the Science Teachers’ Association of Ontario (STAO) virtual library...

Thank you… for the struggle

I gotta say, everyone, that it was huge to receive the Chemical Institute of Canada’s 2017 ...

It doesn’t matter how you feel…

Those of you of a certain age will remember “Fernando’s Hideaway”, a “bit” that Billy Crystal did on Saturday Night Live. His celebrity interviews always included something like this: “It doesn’t matter how you feel… it’s how you look. And baby… you look marvellous”.

Memories of a chemistry teacher

When people discover I’m a chemistry teacher, they feel compelled to tell me about their chemistry teacher.

Sleep isn’t for the weak

What if I told you that I don’t stay up to the early hours of the morning every night studying? I told this to my friends one day, and they all laughed, saying that I was foolish, and I wasn’t studying enough.

Celebrate our colleagues

As a chemistry teacher, my students, their parents and school’s administration expect me to know stuff — stuff about chemistry.

The Comeback Kid

I’ve talked about the advantage of a few years’ experience — grey hair — in this business. As newbies, teachers are faced with a barrage of information on pretty much everything — including students’ (and their parents’) comments, criticisms, defences and the like.....

Hydronium ion: Yes or no?

Do you use the hydronium ion when writing a weak acid equilibrium system?

Time theft

My brother recently introduced me to the idea of time theft.

Curriculum night

Do you have a “curriculum evening”1 at the beginning of your school year?

Whatcha gonna do when I’m gone?

We all need to be away from class at one time or another. There are unplanned absences — most of us (unfortunately) get sick; family emergencies happen; pet rabbits die. One may not be able to leave detailed instructions for a substitute teacher; a nasty flu is not conducive to emailing a decent list of “to dos”.

We’ll do it my way… the right way

I really enjoyed AMC’s Breaking Bad. As a chemistry teacher, let me share one of my favourite scenes. In broad strokes, Jesse (Pinkman), Gus and Mike are taken by the Mexican cartel to a secret lab south of the border to prepare a large quantity of Walter White’s secret recipe — read: high purity methamphetamine.

Insoluble… I think not

“Like dissolves like” is a more-than-decent guideline, but it’s not gospel truth. If you’ve taught solubility equilibria and Ksp, you know that even the most insoluble compound has some teeny, tiny, yet finite solubility.

Forget passion — it’s about engagement

We hear the word “passion” a lot. It used to belong in boudoirs and on dance floors. Now it’s in teacher resumes and in job descriptions. Teachers’ “passions” run the gamut from corporal punishment to iPads to microchemistry to “flipped” classrooms. And that’s okay.

Ann O’Tate

I teach at a boys’ school. I urge my students to all date the same girl — Ann O’Tate. As socially awkward and potentially inappropriate as this sounds, I tell my students that it will be a difficult, yet rewarding relationship: You may choose to dump her, but she will never desert you.

What’s your (chemistry) fantasy?

When I’m on a plane, or at a party, or when I don’t know how to keep a conversation going, here’s a question I like to ask: “What’s your rock and roll fantasy?” You get one shot. One night; the crowd could be 50 or 50,000.

Celebrate!!!

Hey, Hey, Everybody. I’ve got a little secret: we have possibly the best job anywhere. And by that I don’t mean the easiest job — far from it. We work %$#@! hard, harder than most people realize.

Vive la science!

I just had a moment. Not a moment, but a MOMENT. A super-moment-of-science moment. It all started with a pretty lacklustre, results-wise, experiment that I — and most of us (probably) — have our students perform. It concerns the determination of the empirical formula of magnesium oxide.

It's cold outside…your comfort zone

Have you had to teach outside of your comfort zone? I have. When I began teaching at Taylor’s College, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in April, 1986(!), I was thrown off the deep end. Fresh out of teachers college, I was assigned senior calculus and chemistry classes at a high-level school whose mission was to prepare matriculating students for university study abroad.

A chemical compound by any other name…

Stay with me folks… I'll get to the point eventually. I am one of those people who is very good with names. Faces, I'm okay, but with names, I'm like some kind of middle-aged prodigy. I'm not talking about remembering the name of someone I just met at a conference or at a cocktail party. I'm as bad as the next person with that.

“Don’t mail matches”

The picture depicts the inside of a promotional matchbook from the ‘60s or ‘70s. Looks pretty easy: if you want two free books from the Cleveland Institute of Electronics, Inc., complete your information and mail it. However, if you read the far right, you may laugh or cry, depending on your sense of humour. Did people really send the matches along with the matchbook?

Strategy and tactics

The 2014 Canadian Oxford Dictionary states that strategy is a “long-range policy designed for a particular purpose”, such as a strategy for effective learning. Tactics, on the other hand, refer to “a plan or method used to achieve something”, like completing all homework and studying well in advance of tests.

We are (almost) all mentors

Recently I had an interesting conversation with my newbie science teacher colleague, Christa Chisholm. I offered some unsolicited advice, as I frequently do. In a typically Canadian moment, I apologized for “telling her what to do”, but hoped that she wouldn’t mind, given the fact that I am older. In a moment of crystal clarity, Christa responded, “That’s okay, you can be my school Dad.”

Sharing… goes beyond kindergarten

I heard more than once that some chemistry teachers don’t like to share. I’m not referring to popsicles or spouses, but to self-developed resources: handouts, labs, PowerPoint lessons and the like.

The real value of lab technicians

The hours that I don’t have to spend in the prep room have given me the opportunity to develop and to maintain the curriculum, which directly benefits students. How can chemistry teachers — the front line troops — develop any meaningful curriculum if their time is spent on mundane tasks better suited to a lab technician?

Chance discovery favours the prepared mind

The title paraphrases the quotation attributed to Louis Pasteur (1822 – 1895), a French microbiologist credited with developing the germ theory of disease. No one-trick pony, Pasteur discovered stereochemistry and invented Pasteurization, probably in his spare time.

Orbital hybridization — the stork

In Grade 11 chemistry, I teach atomic orbitals as part of a bigger lesson on electron configuration. This is super great — students gain insight into why the periodic table looks like it does: s-block, p-block, d-block, f-block.

Stop telling us how to do our job

One of the things I love about being the sole chemistry teacher in an independent school is my autonomy. I can teach in the manner I see fit; I can make last-minute changes and executive decisions — the school doesn’t interfere.

What’s your kryptonite?

Remember Superman? Not the recent movies starring what’s- his-name, but the television series produced in the 1950s. Clark Kent, the “mild mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper” would duck into the nearest phone booth (remember those?), and shed his suit in favour of tights and a cape, with the trademark “S” emblazoned on his broad, manly chest.

Chemistry: It’s not fun

Recently, I was listening to a talk at a conference. The speaker told us how he had his students do something-or-other because it was fun. He specifically mentioned that he wasn’t too concerned with what students learned, as long as they had “fun”.

Oh Henry story

Everyone has one — the uncle or aunt or grandparent or parent who tells the same lame story at every family gathering. In my family, I'm that guy. I pretend not to notice the eye-rolling and the "I think my cell phone is ringing" when I start my reminiscences.

What got me hooked on chemistry

Chemistry . . . revealed

As a kid, I never cared much about science. Xylem and phloem weren’t flowing — in my mind, at least; continental drift left me drifting; I was the poster boy for density, if you know what I mean. I remember what my grade 10 science teacher told my father at a parent-teacher meeting in 1974: "Your son will never go to university."