Frank Andrews – Teaching Statement 2000-01
Professor of Chmistry

Getting to Know Students

When my wife Jeanie and I arrived in Santa Cruz, I was a chemistry teacher. It was 1967, and we moved into Rutherford House in Crown to live for five years as Resident Preceptors. Within days I found myself teaching everythingÑhow to live together with others, how to live in a normal-looking body, how to use your mind for support, rather than abuse, how to enjoy life instead of agonizing over the demand for approval or perfection. I even gave (in)famous annual Òsex lectures,Ó out of concern over the staggering naivete students had about the subject.

Most important, I found myself giving attention, care, approval, and support to each student who came into my life—because I had fallen in love with the students. And IÕve been in love with them ever since. (Of course, they sometimes tested that love, but I worked at never putting them out of my heart.) I believed in them, each of them—usually a lot more than they believed in themselves.

My Commitments as a Teacher

IÕve been teaching everything ever since—if not to others, then to myself. Even my books and research have a strong pedagogical flavor. I teach out of a set of commitments, and whenever I notice I am at odds with one, I calmly change the way I am living so that I am again aligned with it. Here are my major teaching commitments. I would like to say that I always keep them, but I seem to be human, and I donÕt.

1. I have deep respect for each student, for the importance of their pain and their joy, and for their limitless capacity to learn and grow.
2. I view the academic subject matter, the assignments, the interpersonal dynamics, and the structure of each course as serving each studentÕs lifetime learning and growth.
3. I radiate enthusiasm and respect for my subject matter.
4. I plan each course carefully, consistent with the widely different purposes that my courses often have.
5. I encourage the TAÕs and others who work as part of the team that is teaching ÒmyÓ courses to exercise their own unique talents and passions.
6. As a role model, I openly expose my own humanity to my students rather than hide it behind my discipline.
7. I remind myself that I am born to teach and I am blessed to have this amazing opportunity.

Chemistry Lecture Courses

I am still a chemistry teacher. I delight in all those little molecules made of atoms and the amazing transformations they undergo. ItÕs wonderful how the mathematics of quantum mechanics works at the atomic level to create molecules, and how the mathematics of statistical mechanics works to show the way an unimaginable number of molecules create the macroscopic world in which we live.

In chemistry, I teach only lecture courses, and a lot of my students ÒknowÓ when they arrive that they hate chemistry. Sometimes I can inspire them to change their view. I wish I could more often.

As I teach, I develop pet ways to explain concepts. So itÕs been natural for me, over the years, to write and publish textbooks on thermodynamics and statistical mechanics and to write the UCSC lab manuals for introductory and general chemistry. With a friend, I even started a general chemistry text, but the effort collapsed well before we finished.

Teaching Science in the University

For over 20 years, every time I taught a large class in introductory or general chemistry, I simultaneously taught Chem 137, Teaching Science in the University. This course was for upper division science majors who were interested in teaching. It met one night a week for three hours in my home.

I split the large lecture class into study groups, each of which met four hours a week under the direction of a Chem 137 student. The bulk of the teaching and learning occurred in these small, intensive, personal groups. Amazing things happened thereÑsome of the best teaching ever done at UCSC was done by undergraduates in these groups. The group leaders saw, maybe for the first time, the payoff from all their years of studying. Not only did they know science and math, they could teach it to others. As they struggled to teach it, they realized that they really cared about it, and they cared about other people and were skillful with people. And they saw that these skills that would bring them joy, satisfaction, and jobs after they left college.

I trusted the group leaders to teach in whatever style worked for them, to write and grade their own exams, even use no exams if they wanted. They knew their students far better than any exam could show. This made them feel as if the course was theirs, and I was there to support them. They took on the responsibility and ran with it.

In recent years, the National Science Foundation has had a major program Òto change the way introductory chemistry is taughtÓ by using undergraduates as teachers. The NSF is so excited by the results that in 1999 they gave a huge grant to extend the project to biology, physics, and math. Yet, in those same recent years, our Campus has, for bureaucratic rather than pedagogical reasons, come down against the use of undergraduates in teaching roles. So, even though I received a national award for creative science teaching for this course, at UCSC Chem 137 is dead. Similar courses in other departments involving students as teachers, some of the best courses ever taught here, have also been killed.

Science and Human Values

When I came to UCSC, the campus still had a special mission within the UC System for both undergraduate education and interdisciplinary work. Undergraduate education and interdisciplinary work are my passions. I have taught some kind of course on personal and social values almost every year, often through my college as an overload. For the last dozen years, I have taught Chem 80B, Science and Human Values, as a writing-intensive lecture course for 85 to 110 students. This course, which carries a W and a T2, has the following ambitious set of purposes:

1. To learn the methods of the sciences, their strengths and limitations, and a number of scientific conclusions and theories that historically have impacted human values.
2. To consider the effects of living in a scientific/technological society on your own values and those of society.
3. To acquire a structure and language for analyzing values, understand your own values and how you acquired them, chose your values consciously rather than unconsciously, and create a vision of a life well lived.
4. To be able and willing to enter frames of reference of other people who differ from you, exploring what, if anything, makes them seem threatening.
5. To learn to develop positions, articulate them powerfully and peacefully, and live life with passion.

The course draws material from many disciplines. I have carefully designed the weekly writing assignments (due in section) to support the five course purposes. Morale in the course has climbed almost every year as I gain skill and as the reputation of the course self-selects an increasingly enthusiastic student body from all majors and all academic years.

I lecture with passion and speak from my heart. A few years ago I read about David KaunÕs use of Òdaily lecture quizzes,Ó and I tried it. ItÕs been wonderful. Instead of keeping role and giving exams, I give a daily quiz in every lecture. The assignment is always the same: ÒBased on what happened in lecture today, decide what you want to comment on and comment on it.Ó I quit five minutes before the end of the class period. People write from a few sentences to a page or two.

So three times a week I read all 110 of them, respond to many of them, enter brief notes into my record, and return them at the next class. It now takes me only about 2_ hours. ItÕs great for the students. They attend class, stay awake and engage with the material, looking for something they want to comment on. I ignore their writing style and take their ideas seriously. I get to know my students, gauge the depth of their understanding and creativity, and learn where I need to clarify points further. I gain more, intellectually, out of reading their daily quizzes than I do in 2_ hours reading a professional book or article about the subject matter of the course!

And, over time, their writing comes alive. Students have had so little experience of a ÒteacherÓ reading their writing to learn their ideas! As I do just that 28 times in ten weeks, they start taking their own ideas seriously, and they become more intelligent and much better writers. This is especially noticeable among students who did not grow up speaking English. I can hardly wait to sit down with my pile of daily quizzes and start connecting with a thoughtful group of intelligent, caring young people. I am happy to discuss daily quizzes with any faculty member interested in using them, yet who wants to keep the workload reasonable.

Personal Empowerment

From my first day at UCSC, I was struck by the amount of emotional pain students experienced and by the extent to which they were psychologically blocked from using their abilities. I determined to do what I could to help them. I started avidly reading books on counseling and personal growth and attended endless workshops and courses. Finally I felt confident enough to start teaching a course on general problem-solving and psychological unblocking. I have taught this class more than 30 times, always as an overload for my college, initially under the title Solving Problems, and recently Personal Empowerment (Merrill 120).

The course meets 4 hours a week and entails readings, exercises, extensive journaling that I read and comment on, and a final paper. Areas of focus include commitment, mental self-talk, emotions, analysis of problems, asserting, setting boundaries, time management, approval/disapproval/self image, physical appearance, fears/anxiety, being with other people, and loving. Students apply powerful ideas to their own lives, share the results, and learn from others. Thus they see their own lives as something to be inquired into, like a psychology lab, through which they gain some control over how they live. They find that the skills of planning, writing, and editing their own lives are similar to those of writing a major paper. Living turns into the creation of a form of art.

For many, this is their first experience of learning about themselves and others as a serious activity, one in which they find their habits challenged, and the question of what really matters raised over and over. ItÕs sobering how many of our students are lonely, unsupported, and unskilled at relationships of all kinds, especially with themselves. And itÕs wonderful to see how quickly some can start flourishing, mend relationships, open the doors to opportunities, and melt away long-standing fears and pains.

The majority of the students are considering becoming counselors, therapists, healers, and teachers. My most recent book, The Art and Practice of Loving, grew directly out of my study and teaching of this course. A decade ago, after finishing the book, I went back to graduate school and obtained a masters degree in clinical psychology to back up my informal training.

For the last 14 years, I have run Wednesday Night Group, ten to fifteen selected graduates of the course who meet for 3 hours a week in my home to continue what it started. Some of the members stay in Group long after they have graduated from UCSC. So many say that they wish there would always be a ÒGroupÓ like this in their life.

The Payoff—a Vignette

About four years ago, I was teaching Chem 1C in Summer Session. One of the students, call her ÒD,Ó was an African-American woman, maybe in her low 30Õs. When her kids finally started school, D started community college part time, hoping to become a dietician. By the time I met her, she had, over the years, worked her way through a college in San Francisco and needed only general chemistry to gain admission to UCSFÕs dietician program. But she had taken general chemistry five times and failed every time. And this was the last chance the program would give her. It was now or never. D was bright and caringÑshe would make a wonderful dietician. One more person blocked from doing what they are called to do because of academic hurdles having no correlation with success in the profession! We talked a couple times about her fear of chemistry and amnesia on exams. I gave her my handout on text anxiety. But that was all the time we had.

Then came the final exam. I was proctoring, and had nothing to do but lean against the lectern and look out over the classroom. There was D, two-thirds of the way back, head bent above her paper. Since I had nothing else to do, I spent the two hours just sending her love. I called up a mental image of her warmth and smile, looked at her working and said over and over in my head, ÒD, you can do this, you know this chemistry, I love you, D, and you can solve this problem.Ó Then time ran out and everyone turned in their paper. D got a low B.

Six months later I returned to my office from somewhere and stuck on my door was a note in DÕs careful hand. It said, ÒDear Dr. Andrews: I just wanted you to know that I am in the middle of my dietetics classes and I love them. It looks like when I finish the program, I will be offered a job in the hospital here at UCSF. I am very happy. Thank you. Sincerely, DÓ