STEAM is out of steam

In case you haven't noticed, STEM i.e. science, technology, engineering, and math lost their "A" (arts) a while back.

In the early 2000s, the state of science, technology, engineering, and math education troubled policy makers in the United States. Together, these four subjects became known as STEM, and there was a greater push to ensure they are properly taught in schools. The impetus behind this push largely arose from a landscape of jobs that need more skilled workers with a knowledge of these subjects, as our world became more focused on technology and its implementation in everyday life. In more recent years, however, there has been a shift to add arts into this focus, making the acronym now STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, math). The government itself developed a Congressional STEAM Caucus, and the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 included the arts and music as part of a “well-rounded education.” However, there isn’t a clear outline or framework of what exactly a STEAM education is, or how schools and classrooms are supposed to be implementing this learning. Even among the academic articles about STEAM, there is disagreement about STEAM, its definition and implementation.

One alternative is to train graduate STEAM students in entrepreneurship. No, that does not mean only creating companies, but rather creating user defined value through the discovery and deployment of bioscience and engineering innovation. It also means including arts education along side science education. Connect the dots:

• Arts education is a key to creativity, and

• Creativity is an essential component of, and spurs innovation, and

• Innovation is, agreed to be necessary to create new industries in the future,

• Since entrepreneurs innovate.

• New industries, with their jobs, are the basis of our future economic well-being.