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STEM? STEAM? Get your own frickin’ acronym

STEM? STEAM? Get your own frickin’ acronym

Last updated on: May 28, 2015 at 6:47 am by Jane the Actuary

STEM? STEAM? Get your own frickin’ acronym 2015-05-28T06:47:49-06:00 Jane the Actuary

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The kids are in bed, or nearly so, so here are some further thoughts on this whole STEM/STEAM business:

Some time ago, I wrote that I back in high school and college, I had a fair bit of aptitude for math and science, and wondered whether, had I been given the encouragement which a multitude of programs so diligently offer students these days, especially girls, under the rubric of STEM education, I might have chosen a “STEM field” rather than heading off to study, first, public policy, and subsequently, history, putting the statistics and math in my back pocket for, as it turned out, later use.

Having written, during my lunch break, about new initiatives to incorporate arts education by calling the cluster of fields “STEAM” (and having gotten called out by Virgina Postrel on Twitter), I thought it’d be useful to (let’s face it) ramble on about the topic a bit longer.

What, after all, is the point of “STEM” — the label, that is, not the fields themselves? To my knowledge (and no, I am not going to verify this by means of an extended and likely frustrating google search, and if there’s an easy way to identify the origin of the term, I don’t know it), the whole point of identifying these fields as worthy of special support was the belief that too many young people who had the ability to do well in these areas, were unnecessarily rejecting these fields of study because they believed (a) they were “too hard”, (b) they were “too boring”, and/or (c) only nerds head into those fields, and you don’t want to be associated with them, because they have cooties — or, in any case, that only kids who have an innate talent and love of science should make the effort.

Besides which, again, if I’m not mistaken, the concern was that there was too little attention given to these fields, and too little rigor, in the classroom, due perhaps to a notion that most kids didn’t really “need” this knowledge and the kids who were headed into tech fields were pick up what they needed to know on their own anyway.

Is the acronym artificial? You bet — after all, aren’t technology and engineering basically the same thing? And math? Math as a skill is necessary for the other fields, though math for its own sake is something far more abstract and really quite apart from the others. But the point had always been to say, “you, too, should consider science,” to kids who would otherwise gravitate towards other fields of study, hadn’t it?

Which is why this business of “STEAM” seems so peculiar.

Of course, art education is important. And it would be a good thing for art to teach skills rather than just being a “fun” break in the school day. (In the same way, incidentally, my impression of music education, even in public schools with greater resources, is that you sing and learn the basics of musical notation via a recorder; in Germany, music class continues all the way through high school, and includes significant doses of music theory.) It probably doesn’t help that art’s visibility these days is in nonsense like Mattress Girl, and that actual representational art, so far as the public knows, doesn’t appear to exist any longer.

It is, furthermore, useful to encourage art students to see tech-related fields as potential careers.

And, of course, when you get to specialized fields of study, one should study all the skills that are important for your line of work. It’s certainly appropriate for tech students, depending on their particular line of work, to have exposure to the design side of art.

But to label design as “tech” because it uses tools such as CAD programs feels a bit forced — is that any different than labeling communication as a “tech” area because it uses word processing software?

Does this really belong under the rubric “STEM” or “STEM initiative”? The objectives are different, the audiences are different. Heck, the stereotypes are different: “don’t worry, you won’t be a geek if you study a STEM field” vs. well, back when I was a young’un, the art kids were the burnouts who smoked in the designated smoking area, a courtyard (or maybe the loading dock?) by the cafeteria. (Does that word exist any longer?)

Next question: is there some deeper relationship between art and STEM?

If we just took my youngest as an example, you’d say “yes”: he likes art, construction (legos — the video didn’t make it over from blogspot), and math (did I ever tell you about when he was super-excited at having learned about the “ten frame” for addition?), and in his mind they are connected. A re-envisioning of STEM as heavily focused on design and creativity would just ducky for him. (Heck, my husband, too, has strengths in both areas, and his eye for visualization helps him assemble the graphics that he presents to clients.)

My oldest? Oh, he’d be screwed. Well-and-truly.

His strength is math and science, and the more concrete, the better. He’s really looking forward to trading biology for chemistry next year, since his current teacher likes to ask lots of open-ended questions and I keep consoling him that next year it’ll be better. And not only is he so deficient in art that he can barely draw a straight line, he doesn’t have any kind of “artistic” sensibility, even as far as art appreciation is concerned. He is, let’s face it, the kind of kid that policymakers want to wish away, when they tell girls not to be afraid of the dorks in science and tech.

(My middle son is somewhere in the middle — fascinated by some science concepts, like black holes, but also history, and his favorite reads are fantasy. Can’t draw a straight line either, but he has more of a sensibility for art, anyway.)

Final question: what do the STEAM-ers want?

From the Rhode Island School of Design website:

STEM to STEAM is a RISD-led initiative to add Art and Design to the national agenda of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) education and research in America. STEM + Art = STEAM. The goal is to foster the true innovation that comes with combining the mind of a scientist or technologist with that of an artist or designer.

Hence, my skepticism: they talk about advancing innovation in the United States, but in the end, the practical effect of their agenda, their shoehorning of the “A”, if successful, is much more mundane: getting a share of the research money that is doled out for STEM education initiatives, or to raising the profile of art teachers, or simply boosting the fortunes of their favorite subject . I read through the case studies on their site but I just can’t get a good sense of what they’re about, except for trivial sorts of connections, like geometry and “You can’t do math if you can’t draw,” or observations that those kids who have strengths in both areas are fortunate indeed. But the desirability of having multiple strengths, and the desire to promote the arts, doesn’t mean that somehow STEM fields and arts/humanities fields are the same.

Oh, and one last thought:

Remember Why Boys Fail? Yeah, OK, you’d have to be a pretty longtime reader to remember my comments on that book — I read it in 2013, but the book dates to 2010. Its major claim is that boys are struggling in school not because of ADHD or over-harsh sit-still expectations, but because in the past generation, literacy expectations have been seriously ramped up, with even math requiring more reading (story problems) and writing (explain your answer) skills. So, yeah, as a mom, I say, “keep the A out of STEM, and get your own frickin’ acronym!”

UPDATE: After an extended Twitter exchange with Virginia Postrel, I’ve concluded that the issue is that STEM has evolved to mean, for many people, not Science Technology Engineering Math but Subjects To Emphasize Much, and that it all comes down to the nonsense engendered by our American tendency to acronymize everything, then imbue those acronyms with meaning.

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