You Can’t Get There from Here

Large curricular changes of the 1960s brought about by the ChemStudy and Chemical Bond Approach initiatives were generally successful, but they also created learning problems. These were well recognized by a series of surveys in 1971. Recent surveys (2008) show that the same chemical difficulties for learners are still present in most “modern” curricula at all levels. This is despite the efforts of many international research projects designed to improve the learning of chemistry. The common factor in all these problem areas for chemistry students is information overload. The effect of having these problematic topics in the curriculum is to drive students away from chemistry. We have come to accept that these topics are fundamental to learning chemistry, but are they so essential? Are we blindly teaching them because they have “always been taught”? This paper suggests a bold approach, which questions the inclusion of these problematic topics and suggests models by which a pragmatic revision can take place without dilution or trivialization of chemistry as a discipline. Urgent joint action by the ACS, the Royal Society of Chemistry, and other international chemical societies is recommended.