With a greater emphasis being placed on digital technology with every passing day, it’s never been more important to offer our children a robust STEM education. Standing for science, technology, engineering and math, STEM proficiency is increasingly required for a variety of positions in the modern workforce. Even for children who do not go on to work in STEM-specific fields, it gives a grounding in problem-solving and information-processing that is hugely beneficial.
Are American schools doing enough to give our kids a head-start on this front? Below, we’ll explore the reasons behind a drive for greater STEM education, the status quo in learning establishments and some ideas for how to improve the current offering.
The STEM world as it stands
A “STEM crisis” is often cited, perhaps only slightly more often than a refutation of such a thing. A 2015 study from the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that both sides were true, with both shortages and surpluses of qualified professionals in distinct STEM areas. As our reliance upon technology grows, though, demand for STEM-educated workers will only grow, meaning that education must address not only existing gaps in the workforce but predicted ones as well.
The state of play in education
While there is widespread recognition of the demand for STEM graduates, there is still much work to be done to encourage young people into the field. In particular, the American education system does a poor job of welcoming women into STEM subjects – with surveys finding a wide gap between the number of young women interested in pursuing STEM careers and the number who felt encouraged to do so.
The quality of STEM education in the US is viewed somewhat unfavorably by the general public, with only 25% of respondents to a Pew Research Center survey considering the country to be either the best in the world or even above-average compared to other developed nations.
What can be done to improve?
Attention should be paid to both sides of the process of bringing students into the STEM sector: increasing engagement with students to stir an interest in such subjects, and doing a better job of enabling those kids to follow up on that excitement. For the latter, that means making a concerted effort to reach out to and lift upunderrepresented demographics in STEM fields.
In the classroom, effort should be made to make STEM learning more dynamic, more thrilling and more directly related to students’ lives – offering practical applications for work that might initially appear arcane or off-putting. Options could include bringing STEM classroom kits into schools, utilizing purpose-designed educational tools that are already available, as well as doing more hands-on work in the classroom and emphasizing student decision-making and agency to make lessons more involving.
