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Why America's Obsession With STEM Education Is Dangerous
HughPickens.com writes According to an op-ed by Fareed Zakaria in the Washington Post, if Americans are united in any conviction these days, it is that we urgently need to shift the country's education toward the teaching of specific, technical skills, expand STEM courses (science, technology, engineering and math) and deemphasize the humanities. "It is the only way, we are told, to ensure that Americans survive in an age defined by technology and shaped by global competition. The stakes could not be higher." But according to Zakaria the dismissal of broad-based learning, however, comes from a fundamental misreading of the facts — and puts America on a dangerously narrow path for the future.
As Steve Jobs once explained "it's in Apple's DNA that technology alone is not enough — that it's technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our hearts sing." Zakaria says that no matter how strong your math and science skills are, you still need to know how to learn, think and even write and cites Jeff Bezos' insistence that writing a memo that makes sense is an even more important skill to master. "Full sentences are harder to write," says Bezos. "They have verbs. The paragraphs have topic sentences. There is no way to write a six-page, narratively structured memo and not have clear thinking." "This doesn't in any way detract from the need for training in technology," concludes Zakaria, "but it does suggest that as we work with computers (which is really the future of all work), the most valuable skills will be the ones that are uniquely human, that computers cannot quite figure out — yet. And for those jobs, and that life, you could not do better than to follow your passion, engage with a breadth of material in both science and the humanities, and perhaps above all, study the human condition."
As Steve Jobs once explained "it's in Apple's DNA that technology alone is not enough — that it's technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our hearts sing." Zakaria says that no matter how strong your math and science skills are, you still need to know how to learn, think and even write and cites Jeff Bezos' insistence that writing a memo that makes sense is an even more important skill to master. "Full sentences are harder to write," says Bezos. "They have verbs. The paragraphs have topic sentences. There is no way to write a six-page, narratively structured memo and not have clear thinking." "This doesn't in any way detract from the need for training in technology," concludes Zakaria, "but it does suggest that as we work with computers (which is really the future of all work), the most valuable skills will be the ones that are uniquely human, that computers cannot quite figure out — yet. And for those jobs, and that life, you could not do better than to follow your passion, engage with a breadth of material in both science and the humanities, and perhaps above all, study the human condition."
Every field must be rendered to it's logical axioms in order to allow computers to perform every task. Tasks that cannot be computerized are obsolete and are to be re-designed for computer processing. Your so-called "human" skills are an impediment to this future and are thus required to be eliminated.
Like everything else in this country, people seem to have this pathological need to take things to extremes. The neglecting of STEM subjects in schools was a problem that needed to be fixed. In the past, we have given far too much credence to the notion that you can just study focused subject to the exclusion of all else and you'll be a success. Trouble is, we have too many people who studied nothing but transgender religious environmental studies and now they wonder why they can't get a job.
So naturally, the knee jerk reaction is to swing the pendulum all the way to STEM at the expense of a broad education. And that's just as bad.
Yes, we do need to increase the amount of STEM training we provide to our students. But only insofar as we eliminate the neglect those topics have suffered. And we cannot justify neglecting the other subjects. Having students understand the basic concepts in STEM fields is just as important as understanding the significance of the major events in history and understanding the basic classical themes in literature, not to mention the need to know how to communicate effectively in speech as well as in writing. They are all pieces in a greater whole. Neglecting any of the pieces reduces the whole.
All I know is that I tested out of all of my humanities credits when working towards a degree
My daughter is going to college to become an English teacher.
I think that it is to spite me, but I bet that she'll be working as a tech trainer before long
To be honest, the sheer mass of the US student body pretty much guarantees that even the hardest push towards STEM education will only result in a small percentage of students really moving in that direction.
I only wish that most of the HR and Sales types that I gather requirements from had some baseline exposure to logic :/
Wherever You Go, There You Are
A friend of mine's son wants to switch from engineering to art. He got into Pitt's engineering school. Once he gets there, he discovers that it's hard. This is first semester. Hasn't even gotten to anything engineering related yet. He wants to switch to art, because it's more fun. He's not out to get prepared for a career, he wants to have fun in college. This is one of the major reasons we lack STEM graduates.
Which they all did not because they had any real interest in furthering art, philosophy, or the advancement of culture and ideas but because a they were propagandized in thinking that university education makes sense for 'everyone'.
I am on what might be considered the leading edge of the millennials (I was born in the early 80s). I got out of school mostly before everyone started shouting "STEM STEM STEM" in my day the mantra was "college prep, college prep.." if you were a kid and even suggested to anyone anywhere you had thoughts about your future that did not include a 4 year degree, they immediately would launch into this diatribe about how you'd never get beyond sweeping the floors anywhere if you did not do so. Plenty of people worked your parents over pretty good too, encase they entertained any while notions about letting you find your own path.
So we ended up with a ton of people in colleges who really had not business being there. They got humanities degrees because those are largely subjective; you can award a degree and not worry about things reflecting poorly on your institution as much. I am sure some will disagree but the fact is that it at least at the undergrad level it is easier to walk out with degree in religious studies or ethics, than mathematics. Lets not forget college is expensive and thanks to the student loan bubble and the need to chase those dollars; I believe, can't prove, that many institutions felt a lot of pressure to issue degrees one way or anything so their graduations rates looked decent. So likely we have tons of humanities and business degree holders out there that were probably never good college candidates in the first place.
Its no surprise these degrees are not valued highly in the market place now. So the solution is to repeat the problem by pushing people into degree programs that are still considered valuable. The result will if anything will be to devalue these degrees.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
The fundamental idea is right...that it is understanding of the human condition that will be the biggest growth area in the next few decades. But he is wrong that this is an argument for training more students in current curriculum in anthropology or classics. The future belongs to people who can take the serious critical thinking characteristic of math, science, and engineering curricula and apply it in complex situations where technical details and human behavior are both important.
I have two degrees, one in Art History and one in Theoretical Physics.
I dropped Art in my junior year because it was TOO HARD.
Physics was way easier... read the book, take the test, done.
Art required creativity, research, brainstorming, craftsmanship, and a tough skin (because your work gets critiqued).
Today I'm a software engineer.
Everything useful I learned in college I learned in art class.