Sophomore Year Chemistry. Few words stir up as much fear among Keystone students as these three words. Every year, they tell stories around the campfire, at graduation speeches, and during study breaks, recounting the traumatic experiences they all faced in that one class. Yet, this question always concerned me. Why is this class so infamous among Keystone students, and how has this reputation persisted throughout the years? To answer this question, I conducted an interview with the man behind it all, Mr. Jason Nydegger himself.
The first question I asked was about how long Mr. Nydegger has been teaching the Sophomore Chemistry class and if it has seen any major changes in content, structure, or teaching style over the years. He stated that this was his 20th year teaching Chemistry, as he was originally hired to teach Physics; however, the Chemistry teacher at the time left after just one quarter, so Mr. Nydegger filled his place. What was interesting was the fact that he said, “Content has not changed. I’ve switched around some of the things that I’ve done, though…I originally used to start off with Nomenclature (a systematic method for naming chemical compounds)…and I started talking to some students about 10 years ago, and I said ‘what if I were to start off with orbitals’…it seemed to work better.” While certain topics and units were shifted around, the core content has remained the same throughout his years of teaching. I then asked about how he personally feels about the reputation of his class being so difficult, and why he thought students would feel that way. He explained that “the grade I give you does not reflect on you personally; it just has to do with what you happen to know at that time…Students should come into the class understanding that it is quite a bit of a step above a lot of science classes they may have had before, but not necessarily be afraid of me as a teacher.” I believe that Mr. Nydegger doesn’t want the difficulty or how well you do in the class to dictate your relationship with him, as he even said that “I have a lot of alumni who were not the best in the class.” This just goes to show that it’s okay to make mistakes in this class; it’s not gonna ruin your high school experience or your relationship with the teacher.
Probably our most interesting discussion was with my third question, which was about a specific topic that students particularly struggled with: equilibrium. He said the reason it was so difficult was because “there is a lot going on there…You have to step back, and you’re not just working with one equation…you’re thinking about what’s happening overall, and you’re applying the equations and the situations to it.” This response made me think. Maybe one of the reasons this class can be so difficult is that it’s a type of scientific process we haven’t dealt with much yet. Rather than just plugging in simple values, we have to think about the system at hand and how the formulas apply to certain situations. As a follow-up, I asked about how he felt about challenge and struggle in school and how necessary they were to academic success. He said, “Everybody should be challenged by something…and everyone is going to struggle with something…It’s good to understand when you’re struggling and how to overcome that struggle.” He even applied this to other classes. Personally, he used to really struggle in history, and for all of us, it might either be this class or another class that we’ll eventually struggle with. It’s more about how we overcome that struggle that’s important than the struggle itself. He also talked about how just because you don’t understand something immediately doesn’t make you a bad learner or a bad student. That was a response that really stuck with me, because I’m sure we can all relate to a time when we were really frustrated that we couldn’t understand something immediately. However, we must remember that it may take time for the concept to truly click.
My interview was finally concluded. I know I definitely gained a lot of knowledge about Mr. Nydegger’s teaching philosophy and about potential reasons this class is so difficult, and I hope you, as the reader, did, too. The class itself may still be very challenging, but behind it is another Keystone teacher who cares about all of our success in school and in life. From this experience, when it’s eventually my turn to warn the incoming sophomores about the horrors of sophomore-year Chemistry, maybe I’ll leave them with some advice instead: You may struggle, and you may find certain units very frustrating. However, your performance in this class does not dictate who you are or what you can achieve. Perhaps it’ll just take a little extra time for you to understand it!
