There is a corrosive discourse about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) versus a subversive variant which includes the “A” for the arts. It may be unintended, but the discourse is useful.

Check your campus or workplace; we can dance, sing, quote the Bible, talk reggae, politics, but why is a machete 26 inches, the shovel 7 lbs? Can we estimate mass, distance or reset a breaker? We give innumerate directions as “just round the corner” and do not use height, weight, bone structure, skin tone, or gait to describe people, or know the right words so we use the “ish” as “brownish” or “tallish” or “fattish”. Age- appropriate STEM begins as kids play see-saw; learn ratio, balance and levers, but will not be taught the concepts or words for years. This is true STEM and we must not contaminate it.

The USA is a rich, innovative nation, yet in 2006 the Committee on Science, Engineering and Public Policy recommended that President George W Bush “increase America’s talent pool by improving K-12 science and mathematics education; strengthen the skills of teachers through additional training in science, mathematics and technology; and enlarge the pipeline of students prepared to enter college and graduate with STEM degrees”.

The America Competes Act became law in 2007 and “the nations investment in science and engineering research and in STEM education from kindergarten to graduate school and postdoctoral education” was reaffirmed in law by President Barack Obama in 2011. When will we embed STEM in law?

If it has volume, mass, dimensions; visible or invisible; living or dead; solid, liquid, gas; electricity, it is of STEM. So let’s stay on the path to reasoned, numerate, nimble, critical-thinking citizens who can manipulate sensible quantities, negotiate and innovate. So why STEM?

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/columns/put-fire-under-stem-now-_112384