How I Got an A in Chemistry

Mr. Mitchell reminded me of a chipmunk—short and squat with puffed-out cheeks and a thick neck. Even the suit he wore everyday looked like a chipmunk—tawny brown, streaked with chalk dust, and flecked from chemical stains.

He brought no excitement to chemistry class. So students stepped up by setting off stink bombs during labs and dropping calcium metal into a pen to make it explode like a firecracker.

Mr. Mitchell lectured in a monotone and in circles. And if we managed to butt in with a question, he repeated what he had just said or contradicted himself or told us we should have found the answer in the textbook chapter he had assigned us to read.

Nevertheless, Mr. Mitchell made a way for us to succeed. Well, at least to earn an A.

His testing pattern was consistent. On day one, Mr. Mitchell would announce a test and conduct a review that no one understood. The second day, we’d take the test. On the third day, he’d turn back our graded tests, which we’d all failed, and harangue us for stupidity and indolence. We endured because we knew what was next—the right answers for the test, which we would retake on day four.

In study hall, we’d drill each other.

“Number 13?” John Jenkins would ask.

“Single replacement reaction.”

Donna Boyd beat me to the answer. But neither of us knew the question for the answer.

Not that this mattered. When we took the exact test the next day, we’d all earn A’s. And without even reading the questions.

Mr. Mitchell taught me exactly how not to be a teacher.

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Read about other, more excellent teachers in my memoir Yoder School.