KyLee Morrissette
Professor Emerson
English 104
3 April 2018
Education System of STEAM
Have you ever wondered why science can’t answer everything alone? If so what can we do to make it more easier to break down those complicated questions? What if I told you with a little help from art it could open up to new possibilities in science. Art is very creative and more open minded, while in science you are taught to think inside the box. These two groups are very fascinating and interesting in their own way. Yet, once you put them together you create the educational system of STEAM. Which will help shift a newer view of science, and help open up scientists to think of the impossible.
Science, a fascinated thing that can be defined as, “the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.” (Oxford) Meaning the systematic study of behavior and physical features of our natural world, which we observe on the daily and tests hypothesis. Science is what we use on a day to day basis, to explain almost everything. Yet for some reason we are having troubles answering everything. We completely lack empathetic reasoning in our educational system. (Lehrer 2). Maybe that lack in empathetic reasoning could be the reason we don’t know everything. Empathetic reasoning is one form that art portrays.
Now let us get right down to business, what is art? Something we all know but never can describe the same way twice. According to the Oxford Dictionary, art is defined as, “quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance.” Let me break this down for you. Art can be defined as quality; an essence, or distintable characteristics. Or it can be defined as a realm; a royal domain, also known as a kingdom. By adding these means of art into our educational system we could craft a new look upon things. A high avocate of this new form of educational system is Yo-Yo Ma.
Who is Yo-Yo Ma you may ask. Well Ma is a cellist and songwriter, that has been performing since the age of five. Naturally causing Ma to considered the role of art in our world. In which his essay “Necessary Edges: Arts, Empathy, and Education,” he talks about how adding art into science creates an “edge effect” that promotes equilibrium and produces a global culture. (MA 1). Ma is a strong believer in adding the arts into the educational system. Yet some people have different ideas on how to add the arts into science.
Jonah Lehrer, an American author that studied neuroscience at Columbia University. Wrote a paper called, “The Future of Science…. Is Art?” In this paper Lehrer talks about not just adding the arts into school education, but goes a step further and wants to add art into the scientific process. Honestly, I don’t necessarily disagree with Lehrer, but I do feel we need to start off slow. Starting off slow by adding art into the educational system. Because if you just throw art into the scientific process right now people will be confused and concerned on how to use art in the scientific equations. Therefore if we start off young, with a new mindset it will be easier to craft children’s minds more in an artistic view.
Our educational system today is based off of STEM, which teaches us about science, technology, engineering, and math. Similarity in STEAM they add a little bit of arts and its empathetic reasonings. With a STEAM based educational setting we will shift a new view on science. Therefore the science will be more open minded to new ideas, making science more easier to help break down those complicated methods.
To begin creating an educational system of STEAM, we could start off slowly by adding poetry into physicists’ classes. Nowadays students find physics strange and irrelevant, having the arts enter this process might change people’s views. “…The arts can help us reattach physics to the world we experience.” (Lehrer 5). One big reason for adding arts’ empathetic reasoning into this is to help people get a better understanding of physics. Linking these two different relaties by adding poetry into this process could give us a better understanding of the complex world around us. Thus helping us to find equilibrium in the difference of our community.
By adding art’s empathy, and imagination to science it will create Equilibrium. Equilibrium meaning two opposing forces coming together to create a balance. By adding art with science we will create equilibrium to our hyper-competitive world. Equilibrium is all about finding balance and, “Only when science and the arts, critical and empathetic reasoning, are linked to the mainstream will we find a sustainable balance in society.” (MA 260). Similarity meaning that once you add art’s critical and empathetic thinking into science it will shift to a newer view on science that has never been looked at yet.
A newer understanding of science will be based off of art’s rich data set, that could help us look into those blind spots we’ve been missing. That rich data set meaning its empathetic thinking and reasoning. Yet some people just don’t see it, “…the standard response of science is that such art is too incoherent and imprecise for the scientific process.” (Lehrer 3). Ultimately scientists completely disagree with adding arts into their programs due to the thought of art being too incoherent and imprecise. Which doesn’t make any sense due to the fact that the definition of imprecise is lacking exactness and accuracy of expression and or detail. Thus making art the definition of expression, by giving us the ability to express our feelings and emotions through both verbal and nonverbal ways.
Why do we need to acknowledge the ways art can express things with and without verbal context? Simply because we acknowledge that art gives us the opportunity to create answers to the most complicated questions by giving us more room to think, and believing in the impossible. In fact, “The arts help us cope with these issues by engaging, not avoiding, the deep emotions of intimate loss involved and retelling over and over again the story of the human condition and its limits.” (MA 2). To put it bluntly we would teach people to be more empathetic, and add reason to everything. By doing so we would create a new form of thinking in science. As a result it will make us look at these problems with many different aspects of views.
Just image this new rounded mindset the future generations will have with the educational system of STEAM. Our mindset right now is in a shape of a square, just like everyone else around us. Similarity meaning we only think a certain way. Personally, I prefer to think differently from everyone else. In conclusion, it’s time to create a new learning system that will help us to create a new rounded mindset. Which will help scientist be more open minded and will help solve those complicated things we cannot make sense of by adding more empathetic thinking and creativity to the scientific process.
Work Cited
“Definition of Art.” Oxford Dictionaries | English, Oxford Dictionaries,
en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/art.
“Definition of Science .” Oxford Dictionaries | English, Oxford Dictionaries,
en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/science.
Lehrer, Jonah. “Seed Magazineabout.” The Future of Science…Is Art? §
SEEDMAGAZINE.COM, 2008,
seedmagazine.com/content/article/the_future_of_science_is_art/.
“Quality.” Dictionary.com, Dictionary.com, www.dictionary.com/browse/quality?s=t.
“Realm.” Dictionary.com, Dictionary.com, www.dictionary.com/browse/realm?s=ts.
