My daughter is a 5th grade math teacher who I have offended by saying in her presence that many teachers need better training to know how to prevent such accidents.  She says that teachers today believe they can learn anything they need to online and don't need extra instructions.  She believes that accidents like the one Sammye testified in are not preventable.  It's been a long standing argument between us.  She won't accept that today's teachers are not prepared well enough to do such demos safely.

I think her opinion is important only because in my reading and responding to teachers who post teaching "tips" online, I almost always get angry responses if I ask about what safety precautions they are following.  Or if I take issue with the often stated opinion that there have to be fires and explosions to make today's kids take any interest in science.  These are common viewpoints and they are what we have to change.  If the teacher doesn't believe that they need to consider safety because "I know that to teach science and keep the kids interested, that means exciting demos, and I can do them safely" but they don't really know, they just think they do, how do we change that behavior?   I'm sure the teacher in the trial Sammye testified in didn't think anything bad was going to happen, or that there was a potential danger she didn't know about.  The teachers are so ignorant of science that they have no idea what they don't know.  They're convinced that they will learn everything they need to know to do the demo safely by watching it on YouTube.

They're wrong, as we keep seeing when yet another methanol accident occurs. How do we get it across to the teachers who are making these mistakes through ignorance, that they don't know enough to do the demo safely?  They're convinced that all they need to know is how to stimulate kids' interest.  My daughter says she believes she could do chemistry demos safely, and that scares the bejesus out of me, because I know she can't.  Fortunately, she thinks she hates chemistry  (both her parents are chemists) and isn't likely to ever do a science demo.

But I guess I want to know how it happens that new young teachers think you really just need to know how to teach, and then you can teach any subject, and any lesson, just by looking it up online briefly.  When I did my teacher education coursework, they stressed that I'd always need to keep learning more and more chemistry content to keep up with the science.  Apparently, my daughter and her colleagues are being taught something very different, and I believe it is a big part of the problem we are facing.  My daughter thinks that teacher education should focus only on pedagogy, and let the subject area courses teach the content.  But, as we have all been seeing for years now, not knowing enough science can lead to teachers doing unsafe demos, whether or not they know the pedagogy.

If the teacher looking for a "Wow" demo doesn't know that they don't know enough to do it safely, they won't look up the safety instructions.  If they think all they need is to know what to do and words to generate and keep interest, we're in trouble.  They are not going to look up what they believe they don't need to know.

I don't know a solution, but talking with young teachers convinces me that this is a big part of the problem.  I recently contacted a teacher who posted her start of the school year bulletin boards online and asked her to re-consider the one showing a female "teacher" in a lab coat, with her hair standing on end and a smoking test tube in one hand and a vigorously bubbling flask in the other.  The words on the display were also giving the wrong idea, but frankly I don't remember them.  But her response to my email was an angry reply something like: "you don't know me and how I teach.  I know how to motivate kids to like science, and it takes spectacular demos."  So this teacher is doing just what my daughter's colleagues do, looking for "motivators" online and finding fires, explosions, etc. and not knowing that they are picking demos that are inherently dangerous, or that safer alternatives that can be equally interesting if taught properly, could be used.  How do we reach these teachers?

My dad used to say that ignorance (meaning a lack of knowledge) is curable.  But that stupidity (he defined as an unwillingness to learn what is needed) can be fatal.  Today's generation takes ignorance as an insult, and won't admit even to themselves that there's more they need to learn.  Those of us older know we have to keep learning, and that it's better to learn from others mistakes instead of needing to make all our mistakes ourselves.  How do we teach the younger teachers that the internet might have a lot of knowledge, but it isn't organized in ways that can keep you safe automatically?  There are dozens and dozens of versions of the rainbow demo online, and only the ones from the DCHAS, and from NSTA and like sources mention the danger posed by the methanol that all those dozens are using.

Does anyone have any ideas on getting YouTube to be proactive and make it impossible to view those clips without first viewing the ones that teach the dangers?  Or a better idea on how to get the info out in a way that these young, well-meaning teachers will actually see it and take note?  I don't believe that any teacher says to themselves, "I think I'll run the rainbow demo today so I can set myself and several students on fire."  Instead, they just don't know that they need to keep looking when finding a demo until they have also found all the safety info available to be adequately prepared to do the demo safely.  So, not knowing the danger, and having this belief that schools of education seem to be fostering, they think that knowing how to teach means being able to teach anything.  Thinking they have done due diligence in watching half a dozen YouTube videos with no safety info given, they proceed to do an unsafe demo, when safe alternatives are available, and once again we see this totally preventable accident happening again.