STEAM not STEM 25

[Gumpmaster]

Where is engineering going? Down the tubes is the only place I can guess.

Some in the USA are trying to put the arts on par with engineering:

Oregonian STEAM Article

STEAM not STEM website

-So, should we water down our engineering education even further so we can be more artistic?
-Are arts really as important as the science and math portions of an education?
-Is this just an attempt by those with a less technical education to justify themselves?
-Does congress really need a STEAM caucus?

 

[Twoballcane]

If you are ever in NYC check this place out

http://momath.org/

I'm planning to take my kids there this summer.

Well, we can go on with different philosophies’ of teaching our kids math and science; however, I can give my observation of how the math / science charter school my daughter goes to teaches and may agree with both of us. From a well rounded perspective, math, science, english, art and history will try to coordinate around a common theme in which math and science set the lead. For example, when math and science goes into Greek inspired theory, the other subjects like english , art and history will try to coordinate Greek language, art, and history at the same time. This does not happen thru out the year, but the teachers will try to coordinate common themes in each subject. To add this holistic teaching, there is a separate (which means more money) week long class trip/camping apart from the school called Nature’s Class Room (

http://www.naturesclassroom.org/)

where they take math and science into the woods.

Now for the regiment side of the school, let’s start with the uniforms. Uniform is mandatory, everything from outer wear to the shoes. There is a uniform check every day at morning homeroom. If the child does not have the proper clothing, the child will be sent home to change. At the beginning of each class, the students stand up and greet the teacher and then the teacher greets the children. At the start of class there is a “to do now” work on the board in which the kids have to do for the first 10 minutes and will be graded. The lessons are straight forward. And then at the end of class, homework is assigned and each child has to write it down in their school supplied calendar book. Trust me; there is a lot of homework especially in math and science. For the parents, the teachers will post homework, projects, and standing grade on line for viewing. To make it feel like more like college, the teachers even have after school office hours once a week so that if the student needs more time, they can come in. As for the teachers, they are serious professionals in their own respective field of study. As said before, my daughter’s math teacher is a Mechanical Engineer and her biology teacher is a Biologist who worked for colleges and industry. They are not education generalist with a degree in Education. These teachers go more in depth in the subjects and they expect the kids to absorb and understand.


Tobalcane
"If you avoid failure, you also avoid success."
“Luck is where preparation meets opportunity”
"People get promoted when they provide value and when they build great relationships"

 

[SnTMan]

http://www.tulsaworld.com/article.a...degree_sufficient/20130611_46_E1_CUTLIN361802

So now we see that the term STEM actually has no unambiguous meaning.

A STEM job is... whatever we say it is.

Regards,

Mike

 

[2dye4]

SnTMan

Wow that is one stupid article.

They appear to be stretching the 'technology' part to include anything.

This guy must be a lobbyist for the 'for profit' colleges.

http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2013/06/13-stem-education-rothwell

""Culturally, too, the sub-bachelor’s level STEM jobs are afforded little respect. Professional STEM workers receive presidential medals and Nobel prizes. The closest thing for sub-bachelor’s level STEM workers might be the Craft Professional of the Year award, given out by the Associated Builders and Contractors. This year’s winner, an electrician named Michael Arledge, received a pickup truck, but neither national press nor a Wikipedia entry.""

 

[SnTMan]

Personally I'd take the pickup...

So I'm digging a hole. It is important to apply the concept of leverage to break up the dirt, and remove it from the hole. The concept of leverage involves at least the M, if not the S,T and E. So its a STEM job...

Yeah.

Regards,

Mike

 

[GearsNsparks]

Taken from the originator's link...
“The President's proposal to commit resources to a Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) Master Teacher Corps was encouraging, but we can’t ignore the importance of engaging both halves of the brain,” she said.
"Creative, critical thinking leads to innovation and will help us remain competitive in a global economy.”
...

I think people are spending too much time in a fantasy land thinking that art classes teach anything. Art classes are indoor playgrounds providing busy work for kids that lack work ethic and only want to do "fun stuff". Art doesn't focus on critical thinking. Engineering/Math/physics focuses on critical thinking. I'm a mechanical engineer. My brain often hurts from thinking so hard. I love it. I have to think critically and make decisions for myself. I can't find the answers to my problems on Google. In contrast to the engineers and physicists I work with, the "A" majors that I work with spend their time pondering on where their next vacation will be, which restaurant has the best happy hour, should we get Pete's coffee instead of Starbucks in the break room, or did that person spell that word correctly. They rarely see the big picture or focus on the intent or ramifications of things. They are not thinkers. They push paperwork around and kill time until they can go home and play. Work is a nuisance for them.

I never found art classes in high school or college to generate creative thinkers (or anything for that matter). I don't remember seeing close minded, linear people signing up for art classes, and then next semester, see them creatively thinking about anything. I dated a few in college. It doesn't happen like that. If you want creative thinking, drink a beer or three. If you want inspiration, go out into the world. You do not need to waste your time in a classroom for that. It's far from the best approach. The most creative people I know are STEM majors. They think outside the box. They live life that way. I think its because they understand the world around them better then the "A" majors; therefor, they are empowered to manipulate it for what it could be.

"Creative, critical thinking" does lead to innovation. Its acquired by STEM courses and having a hobby or two. Please don't dilute STEM any more than it already has over the past 20+ years. If detracting from STEM and adding A had merit, wouldn't we have seen the benefit of this for the past 20+ years?

 

[oldfieldguy]

The "A" people in STEAM are nervous as cats. the Big Education establishment is being scrutinized from many different vantage points as students graduate with Lib Arts degrees, six-figure student loan debt and near zero employment opportunity.

When industry started clamoring for hard sciences to fill the workforce and STEM became the catchphrase, the "A" people went into panic mode trying to re-establish their relevance.

From my seat, I think they have more than a fighting chance. A lot of policy (read law and regulation) is made by people of the "A" persuasion, where the only 'science' is political 'science'. Those people control the rules that control the purse strings.

It's time to read Sons of Martha again. Kipling is prescient.

old field guy

 

[rconnor]

Three major issues with the last couple of posts:
1) To put it lightly (much more so than what I first wrote down), we are “encroaching” on engineering elitism. It is fine to take satisfaction in your field of study, I’d encourage it. However, never think that, by some sort of celestial right bestowed upon you by your field of study, you are superior to other fields of study. To quote Hemingway, “There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self”.
2) Confusion on or ignorance of the benefit of arts education in general curriculums (more towards Jhakes post)
3) The purpose of education (more towards oldfieldguy’s post but also general commentary)


Arts Education
If you want to say, so stridently (and ignorantly), that arts education offers little to no benefit to students (and, by extension, society), you’ve got a bit of an uphill battle. You see, most education professionals, cognitive development scientist, neuroscientists and psychologist would disagree with that. These professionals don’t write papers based off anecdotally stories or observations from people they dated, they do so based off careful study in both controlled experiments and from real-world statistical results. The result: art education is instrumental in cognitive development. Just a few references to support this statement. Also, read or watch anything by Ken Robinson.

There is also a common conflation of the ease/difficulty of a class and its uselessness/importance. People see the move away from route memorization testing to more modern, exploratory learning as a means of catering to this “lazy” generation of “entitled” children/parents (they said that about my generation, my parents generation, my grandparents generation...). You hear statements like “back in my day we had to memorize X by age Y. Now a days, kids just do finger painting and get a smiley face for a grade”. Well guess what, the former was an ineffective way of teaching and the latter is just patiently false and purposely hyperbolic. This is not about getting students to work less hard, it’s about using the hard work of educators (in both academia and in the classroom) to get students to work more efficiently. It’s this conflation that prevents educators from moving in a progressive, positive direction.

Let’s also make it quite clear that I’m not defending (the absurd) No Child Left Behind Policy or other such short sighted attempts to artificially boost artificial grades. What I am advocating is progressive attempts to improve the learning and testing process from the traditional route memorization “learning” method and standardized, fact regurgitation testing. This comic perfectly encapsulates the problem in our current system, the problem that some people seem to argue tooth and nail to maintain.

Purpose of Education
I believe that part of the reason for the conflation stated above is due to a confusion over the purpose of grade school education (in addition to a quasi-sadistic notion that if my education was an awful experience then it should remain that way for other generations – I’m, sadly, only slightly kidding). The purpose of grade school education is (or ought to be, and I’d be glad to debate this) to develop global citizens NOT employable workers. By global citizens, I mean critical, skeptical, worldly, informed people. The latter is a natural by-product of the former (with the aid of additional job specific training) but the former is not a natural by-product of the latter.

For example, there is a push to teach computer coding in grade school. I’m ok with this as long as the focus is on developing logical reasoning in children and not so that they are more employable as computer programmers. The job of grade school is to develop the mind and make students capable of reasoning, critiquing and evaluating what comes at them in the real world; it’s about teaching students how to learn, not what to learn.

I need to also address the absurd claim that the powerful Arts Lobby “control the purse strings” of the government (I rechecked to see if it was said sarcastically...). What? Since when do you see a group of historians, philosophers, anthropologists and sculptures put on their pin-stripe suits and go marching up to Capitol Hill to use their mighty influence to twist the arms of politicians. The only group less relevant to (and in) government than the science community is the arts community. And if you think politicians are political science majors, you couldn’t be further from the truth. Political science majors (especially those that remain in academia) are the biggest dissenters against the political system, because they understand its faults better than most, and are therefore the last people to be given positions of political prowess. Instead, they’re given to lawyers, accountants and businessmen (those that are able to bring in big donor money). And to say that law is part of the arts (in the sense being discussed here) is like saying that theology is part of the sciences.

Now, there is an interesting connection between who actually “control the purse strings” (and owns the purse as well) and the education system. The various corporate lobbies, the actual owners and controllers of the purse and the ones with actual political muscle, don’t really care about developing global citizens, they want employable (pre-trained) workers. Furthermore, this could be extended to say that the powers that be (which is not the arts lobby) don’t just want to encourage educating towards employment but they also want to actively discourage educating towards an informed, critical, skeptical, reasonable populous. It’s a lot more difficult to get away with some of the more ethically or rationally questionable decisions when you have a more informed populous critiquing them. This is why I have an issue with the nationalistic approach to our education with minimal exposure to global issues (especially global issues from THEIR prospective); it trains our youth to think that “our” way of life is the “right” way and the concerns of “others” are less important. However, I'm starting to get a little off-topic

 

[JohnRBaker]

I agree, which is why I chose to attend a 'University' as opposed to a technical school (taking nothing away from a 'technical' education, just that it was not for me). While my field of study was Mechanical Engineering (I actually started out as a EE, but that's a story for another time) and it is what I got my BS in, I did take electives in History, Political Science and Psychology. And my required curriculum included classes in English, Literature, Economics and even a class in public speaking, which was jammed into my senior year at the last minute by the University when they made it mandatory for graduation. In addition, I also took 3+ years of ROTC which again included classes in Military History, Tactics, Logic and what many would consider Psychology and even a bit of Philosophy. All in all, a pretty well-rounded education, at least from my point of view.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[KENAT]

Then of course there are countries that if you go to university to study engineering you only study engineering and directly related fields - furthest away you might get would be subjects like pure math and some kind of taster of management/accounting/law or similar.

However, we had this discussion not too long ago and didn't make any headway so why bother again.

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[SnTMan]

KENAT, there is no horse so dead that it cannot be further beaten

 

[Brown23]

Hey, my education has been pretty complete, but the one part that I can't stand is the requirement of taking certain cultural courses before being able to graduate. I understand encouraging students to learn about other cultures in the world, but there should be something short of making them required learning in college, especially when you are also required at some universities to have as much coursework in learning about the heritage/culture of African Americans (min. 6 credit hours) as you take for statics and dynamics combined (about 3 credit hours each).

 

[TomDOT]

In my "worthless" arts classes in Uni I learned hands-on soldering, forging, pickling, die-press forming, metal shearing, anodizing, casting, annealing, work-hardening, riveting, rolling stock to thickness, et cetera.

 

[SnTMan]

See, a couple more whacks....

 

[rconnor]

I appreciate the humour but it’s only beating a dead horse if we talk around or over others. The unfortunate thing, which adds credence to your point, is that we seem to be doing just that. I wish to appeal for a discussion, as I feel this is an interesting topic.

I found it a little troubling that after my post criticizing jhake’s and oldfieldguy’s posts, they received stars with no attempt to discredit some of my challenges. My issue is NOT that others agreed with a view that I didn’t, my issue is that they did so well ignoring uncontested criticism. I’d love to know why they feel my criticism is unfounded as I feel this could be a worthwhile discussion.

But maybe your right SnTMan, maybe this thread has ran its course (and others like it).

 

[KENAT]

If you want evidence of the equine being truly deceased and unworthy of further pummeling then take a look at this thread rconner thread730-324251.

I find it slightly amusing that some of the people most strongly espousing the benefits of a 'well rounded' education/"education for educations sake" approach are totally ignorant about the education system of other times & places to the point that they denigrate attendees of those systems/institutions as having attended 'trade school' and hence being inferior to those who attended 'universities'.

However, now you've gone and got me abusing Sea Biscuit.

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