We are in 2021, the age of technology where everything moves with a lightning bolt speed. These days a company creates a phone, and the very next week, it gets labeled as old technology because another company comes with a better device. And in such times, our education system is still following the centuries-old methodologies to impart wisdom and knowledge to the students. This article will talk about the need to reimagine education and the best ways to do that completely. We will further discuss STEAM education and its importance; stay tuned.
You need to question yourself if the traditional education approaches are still relevant today or doing any betterment. They are certainly not doing anything, and in the age of robotics and the fourth industrial revolution, creating Robo-students who can’t compete in the market. So, let’s talk about the need to not just reform but reimagine education.
What is the Need to Reimagine Education?
The main thing is that the education system is flawed and needs a reorientation. Because today the need is to produce trained and skilled youth instead of making them cram a set curriculum. The question is that why college or university students, after spending 4 years in the institute, still don’t have any practical skills. Why a 2-months internship teaches them more than their 16 years of education training?
In simple words, the problem starts from the ground level or the basics. So, the reimagining of education should also be from early childhood all the way up to professional education in universities. These educationists need training for that as well, and they will have to learn new ways to deliver education. The curriculum needs to change, and the teachers will have to make students learn how to learn.
This is Gen-Z’s (1995-2014 kids) time to shine. You can call them the tech breeds, and they are geniuses. If you teach them a basic concept of how dinosaurs died, they might tell you more because they have continuous access to the internet. And due to all the games children play, they don’t know how to focus for more than 10 seconds if they don’t find something interesting, even if it’s a lecture or studies.
Our schools, colleges, and universities are still working on the passive learning models and only focus on grades. But the real focus should be the brains and the ways to cash out the abilities and skills of a student. Another significant factor to notice is that the students are very career-oriented from the very start, and now we have more entrepreneurs than ever. So, they don’t like sitting in a classroom for hours and reading information that won’t help them get anywhere.
And that’s why many students quit their studies after high school if their interests are not catered to and create their own career path. This is the time where revolution happens every now and then, so why are we still not ready to let go of the conventional education practices. Another question is what to do if we want to completely reimagine education for real? The answer to that very valid question is STEAM education.
What is STEAM Education?
STEAM education represents five fields; science, technology, engineering, arts, and math. Understand more about STEAM Education from our previous article. And by combining all these real-world learning approaches, STEAM guides students in a way that helps them sharpen and polish their critical thinking and problem-solving abilities. STEAM education is relatively newer in the world but slowly dominating the institutes because of its efficacy. According to research, STEAM education is super beneficial for high poverty institutes.
STEAM education helps students to evaluate their options and then take mindful risks critically. The education approach also gives way to collaborative work, meaningful discussions, and problem-solving appreciative activities. We can say that STEAM education is responsible for awakening the long-dead curious learning in students. Students’ solutions after being in STEAM training are so creative and out of the box crushing the conventional thought process.
Are STEM and STEAM Education Same?
Now it’s time for the million-dollar question that might be causing some confusion in your head that whether STEM and STEAM education the same. So, the answer is no. However, both of them are pretty beneficial and far better than cliched education practices. STEM is similar to STEAM, but it lacks the major ‘A,’ which stands for the arts. So, the significant difference is that STEM has four disciplines, mainly science, technology, engineering, and math, but it still has that gap.
History of STEAM Education
In the early 2000s, the world got to know the concept of STEM, which was insanely successful. People not only appreciated it but also incorporated the idea of polishing their skills and overall learning. STEM benefitted the world by bringing up a new revolution in the education sector. And the best part about that system was that it didn’t require any institution, so parents started implanting that in homes.
Anyway, several years later, a modified, upgraded, and 2.0 version of the previously STEM approach came in the market with the name STEAM education. And that concept filled all the gaps in STEM. There was an added ‘A’ to the approach, abbreviated for the arts. And students started scoring so much better with that. The education industry was shocked for a minute, and then people shifted towards STEAM. They realized the value of arts as a discipline that almost every knowledgeable person knows.
When STEAM education became a big thing, boredom got out of the window, and students’ focus increased. It gave teachers the idea to teach students in a way that leaves considerable room for creativity. And when analytical thinking merges with creativity, wonders like iPhone creation happen. The students then started using both sides of their brains and started giving attention to detail which is the primary goal.
Why is STEAM Education Important?
Now, let’s talk about the importance of STEAM education, but we need to look at the stats before discussing that. Considering that STEM started in the United States, we’ll see that enrollments in STEM and STEAM programs are more in countries like China and Japan. And anyone can see in their rising economy where they give way to skill and creativity. And another critical survey shows that the employment rate is more in the STEAM and STEM-related occupations than the non-STEAM occupations.
The world is now a global village, and the population is rising to unimaginable levels. And that means the resources and employment opportunities are decreasing. The competition for survival is no joke, so in that case, we have to think if our youth is ready to fight. We also need to ask ourselves questions like have we prepared our kids to be the change when needed.
And what if we face a global crisis, as the ongoing pandemic? Will our kids be able to progress in their lives by utilizing the conventional education that we provide them? The answer is relatively straightforward, which is no. So, to avoid all that and prepare our kids to fight the abnormal and create light in a dark tunnel, we need STEAM education because we have to prepare them to face real-life regardless of their profession.
Concluding Remarks:
Here we would like to conclude our article about STEAM education, and we hope you have got the gist of it. The primary purpose is to make you understand that STEAM education involves application and practicality. It negates all theoretical, non-beneficial study state of mind ideas. It is more of a real-life education approach that gets students connections in the world and makes them an asset of a country in the true sense. STEAM education promotes the idea that the learning institute is not a place; it’s a state of mind where students bloom.
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