I presented
safety training to high school science teachers last week
and I meet with middle school science teachers next week. I
kinda threw everything but the kitchen sink at them and hope
some of it sticks. They have had minimal to no safety
training and certainly none in their credential programs.
Hopefully, I'll be invited back. <heh> My next
windmill - the school of education, next door to my
building.
I feel like
it's baby steps but it's a step.
Debbie
Debbie M. Decker, CCHO, ACS Fellow
Past Chair, Division of Chemical
Health and Safety
Councilor and Programming Co-Chair
University of California, Davis
(530)754-7964
(530)304-6728
Birkett's
hypothesis: "Any chemical reaction
that
proceeds smoothly under normal conditions,
can
proceed violently in the presence of an idiot."
I have guest
lectured in our secondary science educator methods class for
the last 5 years and so can make sure that our pre-service
teachers at least get 2 hours of education on risk assessment
- Not near enough, but something. I went about 2 weeks ago to
do this for the fall semester. You better believe that they
got pointed to NFPA 45, Chapter 12. Also, that "10 ft"
distance goes right back to NFPA, Chapter 12. That distance
has been used in several cases and I think whether adopted or
not is now "best practices". They hear this as well.
So at least a handful of teachers have this info!
I have reached out several times to the American Association
of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) to get the safety
curriculum changed for K-12 teachers - particularly those who
will be teaching middle and high school. The last time I
emailed the Chair of AACTE was in June after the Beacon case.
So far my attempts have been recognized with, "how tragic that
it is that students are getting burned", and "we will look
into this".
I believe more pressure needs to be put on this group.
S-
On 10/2/2019
10:56 AM, Harry Elston wrote:
I would think it's a safe bet that not
one secondary school educator (including education
management) has ever read NFPA 45 (the current edition, the
one with the demonstration requirements); understand
"Authority having jurisdiction" and probably few have ever
heard of the National Fire Protection Association.
Then there's the secondary issue in local
areas where NFPA standards are not regulatorily enforced.
NFPA standards are just that - standards; not regulation.
They can (and have been) adopted by various jurisdictions as
regulations, but there are areas where they have not been
also.
The root cause of the problem cannot be
solved by the Society but the Society, and particularly
AACT, can assist in solving it. The root cause of the
problem is that, in general, secondary educators are not
chemists (or "chemistry majors"); they are education majors
with some science background. Chemical safety is learned in
the teaching laboratory and when one does not have extensive
laboratory experience, they do not gather the knowledge and
skills necessary to perform safely.
"People change when the pain of change is
less than the pain of staying the same." It=E2=80™s been painful
enough for individuals to act and begin to affect change;
however, it is not been painful enough for the Society or
AACT get involved at an "in the dirt" level. As
organizations go, we're great about talking about a problem;
less so about working to solve it.
Harry
Nfpa 45 has an extensive set if
recommendations for demonstrations.
--
******************************************************************************
We, the willing,
led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the
ungrateful. We have done so much, for so long, with so
little, we are now qualified to do everything with
nothing.
Teresa Arnold
paraphrased from Konstantin Josef Jire=C4=8Dek (1854 =E2=80" 1918)
Samuella B. Sigmann, MS,
NRCC-CHO
Senior Lecturer/Safety Committee
Chair/Director of Stockroom
Chemistry
Appalachian State University
525 Rivers Street
Boone, NC 28608
Phone: 828 262 2755
Fax: 828 262 6558
