Several papers in this issue describe history as a vehicle for learning chemistry and chemistry as a vehicle for preserving history. These prompted me to think about taking a longer view of the common enterprise all of us participate in as teachers of chemistry.

Our society seems aimed at exactly the opposite kind of approach. Most corporations seem to be concerned chiefly with the bottom line for the current quarter, not with fundamental research that may assure their vitality a decade hence. Politicians seem to worry about the latest poll, tonight's fund-raising dinner, and the next election. The state of the country as little as a year or two from now seems the farthest thing from their minds. There seems to be widespread discounting of the future-devaluation of things, such as education of children, that only pay off years later, and even we and our students are not immune. "If I can't see that it benefits me immediately, I don't want to know about it" is a common reaction among students, and we teachers often behave the same way-I want something I can use in class tomorrow, not a broader, longer-term background in the subject that may prove beneficial a year or more from now.

Another aspect of this was touched on in my June editorial on the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). In comparison with other countries, U.S. students' science and math test scores were above average in elementary grades, average in middle school, and below average in high school. U.S. high school students devoted fewer hours to study than those in other countries or in earlier grades, and this was at least partially attributed to the fact that they are much more likely to be working at a paid job. A reader of that editorial responded that students' working for other than the basics of economic survival was short sighted:

In my opinion, parents do their children a great disservice by allowing them to work during the school year. I see students working to pay for a car, or car insurance, designer clothes/shoes, CDs, concert tickets, etc. If I had to, I would take a second job scrubbing floors, or whatever, to allow my daughters the luxury to do their job right-study.

The writer's parents motivated their two daughters to study, and the daughters achieved an M.D. and a Ph.D. Those parents obviously took a long view of what would be most helpful to their children-the long-term satisfaction of careers that benefit society greatly.

How can we help students to learn that science (and life, for that matter) requires thinking about the future as well as the present? Not by simply saying that science is easy or fun. And not through TV shows or classes that show the results of science without documenting the struggles and persistence that were required to achieve those results. Yes, science is fun, but it is a longer-term and more fulfilling kind of fun than that often represented on TV. It is a lot more like the fun of teaching. The process is arduous, it requires discipline and planning, and even when a goal has been achieved there are countless additional things to try. Satisfactions are often savored long after the work is over, except for the immediate inner satisfaction of doing anything well.

Giunta (page 1322) describes using history to teach scientific method and alludes to the case-study approach promulgated much earlier by James Bryant Conant in a book titled On Understanding Science. According to Conant, a scientist "approaches a problem in pure or applied sciencewith a special point of view. I designate this point of view 'understanding science'." And, "Being well informed about science is not the same thing as understanding science, although the two propositions are not antithetical." To understand science, Conant thought, requires that one "retrace the steps by which certain end results have been produced", not that one simply be exposed to a logical exposition of the subject. That is, it requires a historical approach, not a mathematical or philosophical one. Or it requires actually experiencing those, or similar, steps, as in student research projects.

Conant recommended that case studies be taken from the time during which a science developed into its modern form, because such studies would require little background knowledge and relatively little mathematics. Even more importantly, "one sees in clearest light the necessary fumblings of even intellectual giants when they are also pioneers; one comes to understand what science is by seeing how difficult it is in fact to carry out glib scientific precepts."

Perhaps we all suffer from what is exemplified by the sound-bite approach to political, and even scientific, discourse. Students and teachers want quick and easy answers to questions and simple, fool-proof nostrums for pedagogical difficulties, when in fact to attain anything of value requires real effort-even struggle-over a long period. Getting that simple idea across, especially in an era when society's values seem to contradict it, might well be the most important way we can help students.