STEAM Education Hurts Art

Leave art alone. Why has art gotten drawn into STEM education, producing the cute acronym STEAM? Is art the decorative box that you put technology into? Have artists devolved to stylists?

The problem with STEAM is that art is pulled in as an afterthought, it is anchored to something not of its own making.

Art is often connected to technology, whether paint pigments or casting processes. However, art should not be constrained by these technical matters. Art merely uses the tools of technology. Technology shouldn’t use art.

Every year, my students and I make and launch rockets. The science is pretty simple: make everything aerodynamic and keep the center of pressure behind the center of gravity. There is no math. It is a lot of fun and it is always magical to touch the sky with rockets. However, it is not really STEM education. It is building stuff and having fun.

Launching a rocket or flying a drone is not STEM education, it is using technology. The acronym STEM is problematic in that it gives equal value to all subjects and suggests a sequential movement that is wrong. One must first understand math and science before moving to engineering and finally technology. Using technology has nothing to do with understanding the science and math that undergird it. It is unwise to equally couple the easier insights of using technology with the more difficult challenges of understanding science and math.

Technology is more important than science and math for most of us. We want X-ray technicians to be expert practitioners on safely operating X-ray machines. We don’t care if they know calculus or physics. But our educational system is locked into developing structured, theoretical foundations for professions.

Interdisciplinary study is good but we should study MSET and A instead of STEAM. Maybe MSET&A education is too hard to pronounce, let’s call it design education and move on.

And one more thing…

While it is easier to define what art is not, the Oxford English Dictionary commonly uses terms such as creative expression, beauty and emotional power. However, non artistic expressions can be creative, non artistic expressions can be beautiful.

One of the OED’s actual definitions is:

The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/art

 

Rocket party: STEM-like activity but actually model building and fun.
Painting party: Art with nothing to do with STEM.

Birds nest: I took this photo in my yard today. Is the bird an artist?