There was an article published today in the New York Times entitled STEM Education has little to do with flowers written by Natalie Angier.  She started her article this way:

If you want to talk about bolstering science and math education in this country, I’ll gladly break out my virtual pompoms and go rah. Who wouldn’t? Our nation’s economy, global allure and future tense all depend on the strength of its scientific spine.

But mention the odious and increasingly pervasive term “STEM education,” and instead of cheerleading gear, I reach for my … pistil. In my disgruntlement, I am not alone.

“I thought, stem education? What about flower education?”

STEM is not the part of the flower that you might expect.  Rather it stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, & Mathematics.  When the term first started being used, I was not sure what STEM was an acronym for, and actually had to look into the meaning of STEM.

The term STEM, which appears now in many government documents such as Race to the Top, and a recent publication with this title: Preparing the Next Generation of STEM Innovators: Identifying and Developing Our Nation’s Human Capital.  Who would know that this publication was really about science education?  The term is not only confusing, but could be construed by some as advancing “stem cell” research.  In fact, when I visited the very interesting STEM Inventory described as The Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Inventory is “the place” to go to research and find existing STEM education programs available that serve audiences throughout the entire STEM workforce pipeline, including Career Technical Education.  However, on the first page of the site, Ads by Google brought up these sites related to the STEM site: Stem Cell Transport, and Brain Stem Tumor.

Using the term STEM is comparable to the use of the term STS (Science, Technology, Society), and is why I much prefer Glen Aikenhead’s use of the term humanistic science education as a richer term that helps us understand what we really are talking about.  I also would rather use terms like engineering education, rather than embedding the letter E in STEM as a way to include engineering in the curriculum.  Would you ever think that engineering was part of STEM?  Engineering, like science involves problem solving and creative thinking.  If you are interested a humanistic approach to engineering education, you might want to visit Dr. Bill Hammack’s website, EngineerGuy.

Do students take science courses in high school, or STEM courses?  I hope it is the former.

Angier makes a strong point to support the views above when she shares opinions of two scientists, Astronaut Sally Ride and Eric Handler of Harvard and MIT.  Here is what she says:

As even those who use the term admit, it is deeply, serio-comically flawed. For starters, it is opaque and confusing. “Everybody who knows what it means knows what it means, and everybody else doesn’t,” said Eric Lander, co-chairman of the president’s advisory council and head of the Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University. When he first heard the term, he figured it was a too-cute reference to botany. “I thought, stem education? What about flower education?” he said.

These days, given the public’s fixation on embryonic stem cells — progenitor cells that give rise to all the different tissues of the body — the potential for confusion is even worse. “People hear about STEM education, and they think some harm has come to an embryo in the process,” Dr. Lander said.

The term also sounds didactic and jargony, which is why Sally Ride, the former astronaut who now travels the country promoting the glories of science education to girls and other interested parties, said she consciously avoids it.

“With my NASA heritage, I’m perfectly capable of speaking entirely in acronyms, including the verbs,” she said. “But this is not very helpful when talking to the public.”

Dr. Ride’s instincts are well grounded. According to survey results released last month by the nonprofit group Entertainment Industries Council, when some 5,000 participants were asked whether they understood the term “STEM education,” 86 percent said no. “They said it made them think of stem cells, branches, leaves and broccoli stems,” said Brian Dyak, the group’s president. “I have no clue on that last one.” Clearly, he added, “we have a branding issue here.”

I think it is a mistake to turn science education into a “brand” (see Angier’s article), rather than focusing on the wisdom of helping students understand science.  Science at its highest can arouse a student’s curiosity, awaken his or her imagination, and provide experiences in problem solving.