Learning and teaching are two of the major tenets of academic life. I had the good fortune of having two inspiring teachers (A. J. Kascheres and E. A. Ruveda) during my college years at UNICAMP who taught me the value of solid background knowledge to guide you through the most difficult problems in your scientific journey. In teaching, the basics have to be transmitted from one generation to another in the clearest way possible without being superficial: structural chemistry, stereochemistry, reaction mechanisms, biosynthesis and synthetic organic chemistry combine art and craf which should be presented to the young generation as a way to understand and transform life.

Teaching is a challenging enterprise. I soon realized the need to highlight to the students the impact of Science in general, and Chemistry in particular, in our lives and how Chemistry has contributed to the whole body of knowledge we have accumulated so far. To urge students to think about the major challenges facing us and how they could contribute to the human race effort to understand life is the biggest challenge I face as a teacher. At the same time, we face the need to constantly rethinking the way we teach and how we motivate the students to excel in Chemistry (at least some!).

Teaching is an ever evolving activity. One of the great bonus of teaching is the false sense of youth that tends to dominate us. Every teaching term brings a new group of undergraduate and graduate students with their own ideas, modisms and expressions which bring fresh air to our lives. Over more than three decades of teaching at University of Campinas, I have mostly taught Organic Chemistry classes for Chemistry majors and contributed to the reformulaion of: 1) Organic Synthesis (starting mid 80´s) classes taught to the graduate students based on my experience during my posdoctoral years at University of California, Berkeley; 2) Biochemistry for undergraduate majoring in Chemistry (mid-90´s) and 3) combined Organic and Inorganic Chemistry practices for undergraduates (90´s).