Stm In Education

The role of any education system is to equip its students for the real world in terms of knowledge and job preparation. In the United States, schools are becoming increasingly deficient in reaching this objective as they deviate from the arts and humanities and lean towards science, technology, engineering, and math, commonly referred to as STEM. At Whitman, only one art credit is required to graduate while multiple science, math, and technology STEM credits are required in each different component. Overemphasis on STEM credits often requires students to drop their art classes in order to complete their required STEM credits. Furthermore, The United States Congress continues to increase spending for STEM programs while simultaneously decreasing …show more content…
The issue is not the presence of STEM; rather, it is the sacrifice of the arts and humanities in order to teach STEM. Movement away from the arts and humanities hinders students’ preparation for the adult world. Arts and humanities reflect culture; the key to preparing students as they foster organizational skills, the ability to communicate with others, chances of a student finding a community they fit into, and creativity. The United States education system must re-evaluate its priorities so that cultural exposure through the arts and humanities is regarded as having as equal importance as …show more content…
Creativity in the workplace has the potential to benefit both employers and employees as imaginative thinking can often find solutions to problems that traditional thinking cannot, find opportunities that traditional thinking often overlooks, and increase productivity in the workplace. Exposure to different cultures through the arts and humanities fosters this creativity “by directly conveying the insight that there is more than one reasonable answer and more than one solution to a problem” (Putz-Plecko). The exposure to multiple cultures proves to students that different types of people solve problems differently, and that they can all be successful in doing so. It promotes a multi-perspective perception of the situations by giving real life examples of cultures viewing problems differently. Students cannot just be told to think creatively. The education system must provide the time and space to let student’s minds develop so that when presented with a problem they see not just one resolute answer but multiple flexible solutions. This time and space is encroached upon when STEM curricula is overstressed, placing students at a disadvantage after they leave the education system and doing the very opposite of what education systems are