There has been a lot of recent talk scurrying around my school about STEM education. For those of you who do not know what STEM education is, it is an acronym for fields of study in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. Over the last several years, there has been a decrease in study of those fields; students are either not being adequately prepared to study such fields in college, or they are simply no longer interested in it. I would like to suggest that it is the former: students are not being adequately prepared to study those complex fields because too much focus is being done on standardized test education. Now that our nation has noticed this problem, they are quickly scrambling to fix it. And their solution to the problem is to introduce a new form of education in school systems: STEM education. Many schools are seeking to acquire a STEM lab, which is a computer lab that will enable students to do anything from web design to engineering designs to rocket science to flight simulations; pretty much the options are endless when pertaining to the aforementioned fields of study.
This sounds like a great opportunity for our students, right? I think it is; however, I can't help but feel that our nation is doing this for selfish reasons based on this article. According to that article, our nation is implementing STEM education so that American maintains its "competitive edge as a global innovator." And while this may be good for our kids because it enforces useful skills, I also can't help but worry about the state of Humanities. With a rise in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, a decline in the Humanities will naturally appear. That cannot be good for our nation either. There needs to be balance. What programs are we inviting into our school system that encourages students to participate in field of Humanities? A problem is not fixed by completely ignoring other components that are equally important. I suggest a revisit so our educational plan.
