The importance of being Mendeleiev

During the course of a facilitation-skills training with students, the participants (19-20 years old) had to compose as a group two puzzles (crosswords of letters) containing the names and symbols of chemical elements, respectively. The most difficult task in my view was to complete the puzzle with the names, because there was not any indication a priori of the order or pattern to be followed. The symbols were just to be arranged in their periodic-table order.

It turned out, however, that students could not solve the second puzzle but dedicated strong efforts and time to complete the first one. Two mobile cells were on the table displaying periodic tables, though. A second group also used mobile phones, but realized that at the back of one of the sheets to hold the puzzle there was a periodic table of elements. They took photographs of the back, turned the sheet over and started composing the puzzle on the top face.

It came straight to me that none of them knew by heart the periodic table. Apart from this revealing fact -quite surprising in Chemical Engineering students-, there is a shear conclusion that one dares to extract. When one group was asked whether or not knowing by heart the arrangement of elements in the periodic table would have benefited the performance during the task, the answer was positive. This is to me one proof that the general stigmatization of memory and learning by memorizing in schools and public spaces for decades has been misguiding, detrimental and mistaken.

At the entrance of the British Library off Euston Road in London there is a panel stating: "there are too kinds of knowledge; that which is already known and that which is not, but the means and tools to find it are". Something like this. In my view, this assertion is simplistic and, strictly speacking, untrue, because the quality of both knowledges might be different in a given application and when set in time (as shown in the example above). Thus, both kinds do not fall within the same category of knowledge.

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