STEM to STEAM

Since the economic recession, STEM has become a common household acronym: Science, Technology, Engineering, Math. The push for STEM programs makes perfect sense: in an increasingly competitive global economy, these are the fields that will make future Americans successful.

STEM is the direction in which the world seems to be going, after all. Technological and scientific innovations are paving the way for a constant stream of improvements and revolutions, completely changing the way people worldwide live and socialize. Americans were behind on this STEM curve up until about eight years ago, when President George W. Bush announced the American Competitiveness initiative, a program to spur funding toward the sciences and STEM education. Since then, the push for similar programs has continued full-­‐steam, in classrooms, the media, and homes nationwide.

But as many critics have pointed out recently, STEM is only half the battle. In order to make our future generations as competitive and innovative as possible, STEM needs another letter: A, for Arts.

Arts integration has been a dismal subject for the past decade or so. As with most financial crises in the education system, the economic recession sliced arts programs first. Schools cut arts funding regrettably, but the fact that such programs are the first to go indicates a major flaw in America’s education priorities.

The statistics speak for themselves: As of the year 2000, nearly 20 percent of high schools where the majority of students qualify for free or reduced lunch had a music class; the number of elementary schools with visual arts classes declined from 87 to 83 percent in the last decade; and drama classes dropped from 20 to 4 percent as of 2009.

Although the numbers are disheartening, the question remains: do the arts really matter as much in the 21st century? The highest paying and most lucrative jobs lie in the science and math fields, so why bother encouraging students to pursue music, art, dance, and theatre?

As Jon Kam and John Maeda point out, “artists and designers bring STEM to life.”

Although music and physics seem like two entirely unrelated fields, the only way for innovations to truly come to fruition is if creative thinkers bring their own ideas and designs to the process. Artists, musicians, designers, writers, performers—these are the individuals who ask the questions that people in the STEM field need to solve.

Ultimately, they are the people who help discover the most unique answers.

Innovation is an inherently collaborative process, so leaving the Arts out of STEM stifles our students’ potential.

And for those educators who are still unconvinced, arts integration has one more, quantitatively measurable benefit: it increases standardized test scores.

So let’s even out the equation to global success and make STEAM a priority in the classroom.