STEM - Alphabet Soup for Everyone!
STEM - Alphabet Soup for Everyone! Recently, I was asked the question, "H ow did the arts get added to STEM curricula?" I hesitated for a moment, knowing this person was really asking how the STEAM movement began, and I thought to myself, "aren't we still trying to get the STEM movement rolling?" I thought back to my recent past as a District Administrator in the Curriculum and Instruction department in a school district that served more than 100,000 students where every school was competing for the "top" students to enroll in their STEM Academy. I remember asking the obvious question, "What makes this school’s STEM curriculum a STEM program?” More times than I can count, this question resulted in the following answer: "The STEM Academy is designed for our gifted students." Ummm, what? They would continue: "...and since we are a magnet school for the arts, it is really a STEAM program." Ummm, what?