Sometimes the full breadth of the conversation around Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) education is hard to take in all at once. For this reason, Teach.com has put together an infographic highlighting the beginnings of the STEM focus in America, the decline in STEM interest, and it’s recent resurgence as we strive for global competitive advantage through mastery of STEM research and education. Share this infographic with others to help us highlight the continued need for a serious focus on STEM teachers and STEM education.
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I still like the idea of STEM including Art (STEAM). I have a degree in computer science and have worked in large aerospace companies for 25 years and every day I wished that more people understand the fundamentals of art and how it impacts humans. We could be so much farther along if we just included this basic instinct!
As someone who was once studying at university to be a high school teacher, I went back to my old high school to interview my old teachers. Every one of them warned me away from teaching; the low pay throughout the career, the constant layoff notices, the lack funding for just about anything at the school and the enforced test-based curriculum had just worn them all down.
I wish the public and the politicians would see to it that teaching and education is worthy of funding at a level that makes teaching a competitive career option for people with strong STEM skills. I’m curious how the salaries of high school teachers in the 1950s (as in the infographic) compare to the salaries today.
the pay and other issues brought up are distractions from the real issue which is the sheer difficulty of becoming a teacher if you have a STEM education. i challenge everyone reading this to go figure out what you’d have to do to start teaching high school in your state with a math of science bachelor’s.
i’ve seen more people get top secret clearance than successfully get their teaching license without an undergraduate degree in education.
————- let high schools folks with STEM degrees directly to teach. there are plenty of folks who’d like to, and can’t, even when they’re young. i’m sure there are even more who’d love to teach in retirement, after they’ve made their money.
I think the STEAM people are missing the point of such a graphic. I know Adafruit, MAKE, Instructables, and so on appeal a little more to the artsy and fun side of engineering/making, but that is hit what STEM is about. STEM is about not being 23rd in science and 31st in math. It’s about not producing more international doctorates than patriots. STEM is important because we need students who are ready to innovate, not to create some cool blinkenlights for Bjork’s next tour.
If you step into a classroom (I taught for two years before becoming a statistic of STEM teachers that leave to pursue differently rewarding STEM careers – not everyone gets tingly about “affecting a child”), you would see the state of STEM in today’s USA. Scientific literacy is way down. Most students watch a movie like 2012 or Paranormal Activity and believe it is a documentary of an event that just happened. Our best and brightest students are thinning out to the point where even those that do end up in a STEM career lack the necessary critical thinking skills and work ethic needed to innovate.
I think art is great. I was in band in high school. I took photography. I get why it is important. But, the US is not hurting for creative kids. It is hurting for STEM focused students. (Most STEM students I’ve known also did some sort of humanities type extracurricular, anyway.) when we start to include everything that we think us essential into one initiative, though, we end up with a STEAMHistoryEnglishForeignLanguagePhysicalFitness program that we might as well just call “fix all of high school because it is all important for producing an intelligent and well-rounded America for tomorrow.”
I know Adafruit, MAKE, Instructables, and so on appeal a little more to the artsy and fun side of engineering/making, but that is hit what STEM is about. — supposed to say “but that is not what STEM is about.”
I need more English initiative.