STEAM Actually comming to FRC, and im not happy

[Siri]

Originally Posted by KosmicKhaos

You bring up a good point. I also think I could have worded my last post better so I will try to in this one.

I believe the STEM acronym was created to lump closely related fields together. Art is not one of those fields and therefore should not be included. Yes STEM does use some art but I believe the art STEM uses is already covered under engineering aspect of STEM.

The idea that the STEM fields are uniquely closely related is itself a subjective political construct. This isn't to say it's wrong or that I want to change it, merely that it's not sacrosanct. We have no objective way to measure how "close" "technology" is to "math" versus "art" in absolute terms.

Our concept of STEM exists because we've decided to group these topics together. That certainly has its benefits. But in using it, remember that the term you use influences the thoughts you think. Don't forget that a pure mathematician may well laugh at your joke if you claim her entire field is closely related to engineering. So too might a primate researcher or a clinical psychiatrist--they could laugh as hard as a sculptor. This laughter isn't because geologists or biostatisticians or stochastic analysts or thespians are on the "far edge" of their fields or are particularly clueless as to the scope of engineering. Rather, it's because this isn't just an "art" gap; different people see different gaps between different topics in "science" and "math" versus "engineering" or "technology".

I'd advise anyone listening that there's really no reason to define huge topics as "closely related" or not in absolute terms. Just use a delineation that fits whatever situation you're facing. Do you want to help subjects whose funding was cut by at least N% in M school districts? Then I suspect you want STEAM. Is it departments with underrepresentation of scholarship dollars to minorities? Then maybe it doesn't include art, but I'd guess it includes kinesiology. Is it jobs in which we have more national vacancies than graduates? etc, etc. The question is simply: what is FIRST trying to accomplish, and does including Art help do that?