Mainstream education which focuses on answers may be entirely misdirected. Given a collection of experiences, we believe that the ability to come up with appropriate questions is at least as important as the ability to reason answers and far more important than the ability to recite answers. The best scholars are those who have developed [...]

Our students entering chemistry appear well prepared to deal with certainties in a scholarly fashion. If A = B and B = C then A = C. This type of neat solution seems to have preoccupied the students’ early years and then suddenly, there are significant figures. The rules for significant figures are not difficult. [...]

We believe that it is appropriate to teach chemistry with an emphasis on ambiguity. Measurements are not exact and must be understood as approximations. Words are not exact, are often arbitrary, and must be understood as approximations with assumptions. Probably, much of our students’ education prior to chemistry has emphasized the concrete and the certain, [...]