My first chemistry teacher was a guy called Len Stockdale (nicknamed Stoker), a superbly charismatic man in whose lessons the subject came alive. He embedded the connections between the different areas of chemistry into the lessons and made the whole thing seem so simple and obvious that, for me at least, learning the sunject was not only a pleasure but was almost effortless.Many years later, after he was long dead, I was asked to tutor a lad who was having problems with his chemistry. I soon found out that the problem was a poor teacher, who had just thrown facts at the class and omitted the connections. All I needed to do was to demonstrate that the connections were there. Once the lad had been shown that, the facts suddenly made sense to him, and I understand he did very well.
To be fair, my second effort at tutoring was almost completely unsuccessful. The girl was not interested, was not prepared to put in any effort to learn the facts, and I didn't really have the advanced teaching skills that would have enabled her to improve.
