Quote:
Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery
There seems to be a jump in logic that I'm not following from many of the "STEAM advocates." Why must the "A" be included in order for the connection between "the Arts" and STEM to be emphasized? Why must the "A" be included in order to encourage multi-disciplined actions?
|
I don't know if I'm seen as a STEAM advocate... but I will say while I personally prefer STEM, I've felt a need to post about the importance of Art, not because I think it should be included in the acronym, but because I've seen so many people make posts indicating that Art is not a part of engineering. Removing Art completely from Engineering does us all a disservice. We can argue the merit of it standing alone next to Engineering within the acronym, but we shouldn't just dismiss it as unrelated... and that's the problem I have with so many of the people who come in as anti-STEAM - many of the arguments say that art has nothing to do with engineering. Argue instead about the relative merits of STEM versus STEAM programs and what the kids get out of those programs within their schools. Argue about how inclusion or exclusion of Art in the acronym benefits a student or the program in the long run.
I'll leave this with one more note for everyone to think about... Jony Ive is well known for his product design work at Apple. In that role, he's gotten numerous accolades, including:
- Royal Designers for Industry from the British Royal Society of Arts
- a Knighthood
- Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering
Did he get all of that because he built the fastest computers? The most powerful smartphones? The easiest devices to build and repair? No, he got recognized because he built truly beautiful devices. His designs and devices have changed entire industries because of the beauty and simplicity of his designs. If you need proof of that, just look at the criticism leveled after the iPhone 7 was introduced - it had significant improvements in many areas, but carried the same old "boring" design as the previous two iterations... and that design was pretty much all everyone talked about. If that's not proof of the presences of art within engineering, I don't know what is.