A few years ago the acronym STEM would have prompted thoughts of trees more than education.
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Now, STEM – science, technology, engineering, mathematics – is the big push in the sector, preparing students for jobs not yet known.
But science, technology, engineering – they can be quite cerebral and distant terms, words associated with research, development, manufacturing.
The question is, how do we teach STEM while also teaching ethics: the morality of application?
One argument is to ensure the inclusion of arts, to form STEAM.
Including arts – humanities, ethics, creativity – encourages the thinking-through of action to its full conclusion.
A couple of years ago, a social media website was planned to allow users to leave ‘reviews’ of other people’s personalities, work performances and more.
Not only was the website ‘opt out’, meaning you had no choice if someone chose to leave a ‘review’ about you, the awful negative potential for bullying and humiliation had clearly not been thought through.
Unsurprisingly, the creators were slammed and the website disappeared.
So how do we teach children, while they are learning about science and technology, mathematics and engineering, to be aware of the impacts of their decisions?
How to encourage them to think through the impacts of their choices?
Experts argue that arts needs to be included in the STEM acronym, making sure that STEAM provides humanities, ethics and critical thinking into the technical mix.
Without the human element to technical application, we risk creating more problems than we solve – social media is a clear example of ‘what can we do’ quickly outstripping ‘what should we do’.
So yes, STEM is important: but I would argue STEAM is all the more so.