Amen. STEM mania is way overblown. I've been talking about SHADE education instead:
Selfhood Happiness Art Design Entrepreneurship People who can complete that loop will flourish in the 21st century; everyone else is pretty much doomed to frustration. :-( Sent from my iPhone > On Dec 27, 2013, at 13:22, [email protected] wrote: > > > > > > > > > New Scientist > > Invest in minds not maths to boost the economy > > 23 December 2013 by Michael Brooks > Instead of trying to educate more scientists or engineers to drive > innovation, we should focus on turning out agile thinkers > > WE ARE all becoming used to warnings of a shortage of science, technology, > engineering and mathematics recruits – the "STEM crisis". In a world > increasingly dominated by careers that involve these fields, organisations > and politicians repeat the mantra that we really must train more of these > people to secure our prosperity. > > Earlier this month, for example, the UK government announced it will plough > an extra £50 million per academic year into teaching STEM subjects. In 2012 > the Royal Academy of Engineering warned that the UK needed 10,000 more of > those graduates a year. In the same year, Microsoft said the STEM pipeline > needed strengthening because 1.2 million US jobs would open up in computing > by 2020 – and only 40,000 more Americans would have degrees in those subjects > by then. > > These arguments are flawed. STEM training is not the only answer: the > Microsoft report, for instance, failed to acknowledge that a degree in > computing (which Bill Gates doesn't have as he quit a degree at Harvard to > start Microsoft's forerunner) is only one entry path to the industry. Plus, > if there really is a shortage, why aren't wages rising? If you have a degree > and you work in computing or mathematics, your wage is likely to have risen > by less than half a per cent per year between 2000 and 2011. > > UK Royal Society president Paul Nurse has highlighted a glut of science PhDs, > with many relegated to donkey work in the lab. Nobel laureate James Watson > also noted a resigned acceptance of unfulfilling labour among trained > scientists: "We're training people who really don't want to think, they just > want to have jobs," he said in 2010. Watson's conclusion? "We may be training > too many scientists." > > Watson is echoing what many labour market analysts have been saying for > years. There is a solution. Instead of looking to produce scientists or > engineers, we should focus on simply turning out agile minds. > > I recently curated a summit on the future of secondary education. It was > convened as a partnership between the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical > Physics and the University of Waterloo, both in Ontario, Canada. What was > most striking was that the heads of these two institutions explicitly told me > they didn't want any focus on STEM education. They wanted a future in which > students are able to think creatively. > > They are not alone. Norman Augustine, a former CEO of aerospace giant > Lockheed Martin, declared that the best of his 80,000 employees were those > with good communication and thinking skills. "I can testify that most were > excellent engineers," he wrote in the The Wall Street Journal. "But the > factor that most distinguished those who advanced in the organization was the > ability to think broadly and read and write clearly." > > The ability to process, synthesise and communicate information efficiently is > the premium skill of the future. We shouldn't be surprised: it was the > premium skill of the past too. John Maynard Keynes once stated that what made > Isaac Newton great was his ability to focus on a problem until he had thought > his way through it. "I fancy his pre-eminence is due to his muscles of > intuition being the strongest and most enduring with which a man has ever > been gifted," he said. > > When he chose to, Newton was also great at communicating ideas. The same > can't be said of most STEM graduates: a 2011 UK government study reported the > moans of employers that they often lacked communication and organisational > skills as well as the ability to manage their time or work in a team. > > The experts in Ontario concluded that creating students who can think broadly > will not be easy. It will involve abandoning the culture of grades and exams > and moving to assessments centred on a student's portfolio of projects. That > will mean employers and universities will have to be more creative in their > selection criteria. It will also mean holding back from trying to skew the > labour market and letting students find and study what they are good at, once > they have mastered a broad range of basic competencies. > > That's OK: the UK government report already admitted that the expectation > that people enter STEM jobs after their studies "may require some > rethinking". The pipeline is proving leaky, and employers are voicing concern > over a "lack of high calibre" applicants for STEM jobs. It's the same in the > US, which spends $3 billion a year on luring students into those subjects: 44 > per cent of those majoring in a STEM subject shift focus while at college, > compared to 30 per cent in the humanities. And that doesn't include health > profession courses, or computer sciences, where the rate is 59.2 per cent. > > What is most concerning about the drive is that the fiercest advocates are > those who stand to benefit most. As science policy analyst Colin Macilwain > argued in Nature this year, increasing the number of STEM undergraduate > places "floods the market with STEM graduates, reduces competition for their > services and cuts their wages". In other words, it's a source of cheap labour > for the technology industries. > > Pushing more students towards such courses without ensuring they learn more > than just fact-farting and number-juggling may fill entry-level jobs. But our > best thinkers, looking for interesting, well-paid work, are all too easily > tempted away from applying their skills to the big science challenges of the > 21st century. > > So the STEM mantra won't create industries and innovations that drive a > flourishing economy, and it won't bring through those who will solve the > problems of climate change and energy, food and water scarcity. > > It's time to acknowledge that the rationale for the STEM push has run out of > steam. > > -- > -- > Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community > <[email protected]> > Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism > Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org > > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. 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