Tiny Caterpillar Engineers
[“Instead of just standing there watching, can you get me more popsicle sticks for my important STEM work?”]
Coming home from work today, my daughter greeted me with, “Daddy, look what I made in STEM today!” This year the kids have been attending a 2-day/week homeschool co-op. “STEM” is one of their subjects, and yes, it stands for “Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.”.
What she made was a little caterpillar marionette, constructed of colored fuzzballs on a string, draped from a popsicle stick. It was cute, and I am a proud papa. It’s the perfect sort of activity for a six-year-old. It was also what in a more innocent age would have been called “arts and crafts” rather than anything to do with “STEM.”
Later I contemplated why using “STEM” to refer to a bunch of 1st Graders making fuzzy caterpillars bugged me. It would help if they just called it “Science.” A six-year-old should know what a caterpillar is already, but it’s not like they’re gonna memorize the Periodic Table in 1st Grade. So if you need something you can stretch to call “science,” whatever, making caterpillar toys is fine.
What really annoys me is adopting the trendy “STEM” moniker to apply to what little kids do. Like even a six year old needs to focus on the ultimate goal of Beating the Chinese and Keeping the American Economy Competitive and Closing the Gender Gap. Even if that were a noble goal, I’m pretty sure taking timeless little kid activities and renaming them something that sounds like it can Beat the Chinese is not going to accomplish it. But someone important watched a TED talk, so now we’re unable to think of learning in any other terms than “STEM.”
I’m probably making too much of this. It’s like my bugaboo about calling history “Social Studies.” As a kid, I would see movies and TV shows where kids would learn “History,” and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why we never did. A few years later I figured it out, that we had to call it “Social Studies” so that they wouldn’t be limited to Just the Facts, Ma’am.
I wonder whether there’s much to be gained from studying “science” before early adolescence anyway. Maybe that’s too late for the true geniuses, but perhaps we could identify them with a test and let the other kids focus on the three Rs and have a childhood? That could work, at least until the first study of the geniuses’ racial and gender composition is published….
Filed under: Birkenhead Drill | Tags: education, homeschooling
G.
April 9, 2019
I think its part of the fetishization of STEM, as objects in themselves as not as a means to knowledge and capability.
Ditto credentialization. Arts and crafts is a skill set. STEM is a degree path.
nakedrat
April 9, 2019
STEM is what you do until you get to your first calculus or circuits class. Then you drop out because it’s too hard.
Bookslinger
April 9, 2019
STEM, objects, knowledge, capability, credentialization, degree, path, circuits.
https://www.apptic.me/projects/jargon/
We can mine our Big Data on the cloud using block-chain and leverage our affinity for memes and then go viral! We’re talking Romney-style money! No, Huntsman! Maybe even Donnie and Marie!
E.C.
April 9, 2019
@ nakedrat,
That’s what you do unless you’re my little brother. THEN you take physics concurrently with its pre-requisite, calculus, all in your first semester of college. And ace the final. Of course, we learned ‘science’ not ‘STEM’, because we were homeschooled.
@ MC,
My brother, who is getting a degree in mechanical engineering, began his love affair with science young, when he spent a year reading every Star Wars book our local library owned. He then went on to the science section, in order to learn how to make bigger explosions more safely. His stated goal for college is to learn the skills necessary to create his own Iron Man suit.
Much of his fascination with science came from watching my dad move improbably large things using simple machinery and a working knowledge of physics, and make all sorts of weather-measuring devices for work.
G.
April 10, 2019
May your brother’s tribe increase.
seriouslypleasedropit
April 12, 2019
As far as Beating The Chinese goes, the problem is not “Americans are dumb” or whatever, but that STEM isn’t part of our culture. Don’t get me wrong—the expertise and know-how are there, in engineering culture, but that’s a society-within-a-society, like the Church. But that within-society is managed by the *without* society, and neither side really understands each other, so the only reasons to go from outer to inner are for money or interest. But the money has a ceiling, and the interest is only good for so long.
Marilyn Nielson
April 15, 2019
One of my least favorite things is the aggressively condescending “Girls in STEM” movement. It was around even when I was in middle/high school (not yet called STEM, I don’t think) and even then it filled me with suspicion. People smiling hugely, saying in cheery voices, “Girls CAN do science! Oh yes they sure can!!! Girls are SMART! Girls can do ANYTHING!! They make some of the BEST scientists!” Which was the message my (physicist) dad had given me my whole life–so I already believed it–but coming from the education crowd, paired with special SCIENCE CAMPS for GIRLS!! and GIRLS CAN DO MATH!! conferences, even as a kid I felt like, “Geez, what are they hiding?”