During this week’s session, we looked at the concept of turning STEM programmes into STEAM. Personally, through placement experience and my own school experience, a lot of schools are encouraging and using STEM projects, to get children more engaged with science, technology, engineering and mathematics. This is an attempt on the schools part to prepare children for the rise in jobs in these fields in the future.
Even though highlighting these particular areas will provide children with great opportunities to excel in these fields, there are other skills and qualities that are vital for a child’s development, such as creativity and innovation. This is where STEAM comes in.
Adding the arts into STEM education “removes limitations and replaces them with wonder, critique, inquiry and innovation.”
(Education Closet, 2017)
Below is a TED talk about why the integration of art into STEAM is so vitally important.
“In my opinion, I have always felt that the arts and science go hand and hand, as the two are related in many ways. Being a musician I appreciate that being able to read music is a mathematical process in itself. Many mathematicians were also musicians, such as Albert Einstein.”
(Bailey, D. and Borwein, J. 2016)
Although, through my own placement experience, I have not seen much of the STEAM project I am particularly interested in the implementation of it. I believe that it is a crucial component of a child’s development and should be present in every school.
References
- Bailey, D. and Borwein, J. (2016) Why are so many mathematicians also musicians? [Online] Available: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-h-bailey/why-are-so-many-mathemati_b_9814796.html [Accessed 9 April]
- Education Closet. (2017) What is Steam? [Online] Available: http://educationcloset.com/steam/what-is-steam/ [Accessed 9 April 2017]
