RoundtableSTEM
- 1. feature For this edition of Roundtable, Ambassador assembled a panel of experts at Lawrence Technological University to examine the current lack of high-tech skills among our schoolchildren and job seekers statewide. Muchhasbeenwrittenanddiscussedinrecent years about the need for a stronger emphasis on science, technology, engineering and mathematics – more commonly referred to with the acronym STEM – in our education system nationally. Michigan is a technology powerhouse and has been for more than a century.But even with serious reductions in the region’s automotive industry over the past decade,we have more engineers per capita than any other state in the union. We’re a leader in biomedical and pharmaceutical technology and are witnessing tremendous growth in the information technology sector. Unfortunately, our education and job-training systemsarenotkeepingupwiththedemandforthe highly skilled workers who are needed for the near- and long-term viability of our economy. If we are to remain a leader in these fields,radical changes must be made at all levels – from K-12 to the college level, and even during adult education and job-applicant training if we have any hope of catching up. “All businesses are looking for people to solve problems,”says Jason Lee, executive director at the Detroit Area Pre-College Engineering Program (DAPCEP). DAPCEP provides a variety of STEM educational programming to historically underrepresentedK-12students.“ASTEMtechnical background provides you the mindset to solve problems,”Lee adds. Tonya Matthews, president and CEO of Detroit’s Michigan Science Center, says this is about more than just jobs for Michigan and the United States. “Folks with a strong STEM background and instinct are problem-solvers, but ultimately, they will save the world.That is also the motivator,”she says. But Matthews argues that STEM hasn’t been promoted in terms of innovation or solving the world’s biggest problems, but rather in terms of getting a job,forming a career and building a family. “When they’re 30, they’ll get that,” she says. “But in the meantime, they’re interested in saving the world, changing the world, seeing something that they know is wrong and wanting to fix it.STEM is an important avenue for doing this, and I think that’s why it’s important to any region or state that is interested in investing in the next generation of whomever will lead it.” Megan Schrauben, integrated education consultant at the Michigan Department of Education, explains that nationally we talk about the big problems we’re going to have to solve in the future and about the economic development in our state. “STEM provides those ready opportunities to have (students) be able to be successful no matter what career path they choose down the road,” Schrauben says. “Whether they go into a STEM career or not, we also want them to be critical thinkers, voting on policy and other things that really impact our livelihood.” Mike Gallagher, science education consultant at Oakland Schools, says that the essence of STEM education is about putting knowledge to use, CONNECTING CONTEXT TO CONTENT EDUCATORS AND EXPERTS DISCUSS THE GROWING ROLE OF STEM PROGRAMS IN MICHIGAN roundtable feature roundtable Mike Gallagher, Virinder Moudgil Top Row (Left to Right): Joseph Dunbar, Peg Upmeyer, Mike Gallagher, Jason Lee, Greg Johnson, Frank Norton III, Virinder Moudgil. Bottom Row: Karl Klimek, Tonya Matthews, Megan Schrauben. 68 |
- 2. Megan Schrauben photos:JennaBelevender Jason Lee, Greg Johnson, Frank Norton III, Karl Klimek and a social structure that progressively turns off the lights of those students, so that by the time you get to the end of the spigot, you only have a sliver. So, the scientific question is: What are we doing to turn off the light?” Lawrence Technological University President Virinder Moudgil agrees, and he says it’s important to excite students with learning in their early school years.“When kids go to ninth or 10th grade, they think science and technology are difficult, so they take soft courses,”Moudgil says.“We want to start them young, so they are not lost. When you get them early on – like our robotics program, which is grade four and up (and incorporates) computer science, mathematics and mechanical engineering allinoneproject–theydon’tevenknowthat’swhat they’re doing.When they grow with this, science is a passion for them.” Karl Klimek, executive director at Square One Education Network, a nonprofit that provides grant funding to schools and other K-12 learning environments, says schools should apply more project-based education in the classroom to engage students and get them more excited about learning. “I’m a longtime educator, and 25 years ago the kids in my class built rockets,” Klimek says. “I taught reading, math, statistics, just about everything because we were all fabulously excited about rockets.And there are very few teachers that I’m aware of who build rockets anymore because they’re being required to do paperwork. So, I want more teachers building rockets or something like that, and that’s what our organization funds.” Frank Norton III, associate director of Michigan’s Project Lead the Way, the nation’s leading provider of STEM programs and teacher professional development models, says we need to do a better job of connecting context to content.“I think that’s where you really connect with students, and you get them to understand what they’re learning and why they’re learning it,”he says.“That’s where we can reach the students,and right now we lack that specifically in the schools where we need it the most.” Norton is especially concerned that we aren’t doing enough to provide a stronger education for underprivileged students in the state. They will arguably need a better education than their more advantaged peers in order to make up for the lack of opportunity that their economic status provides. Moudgil also sees this as a particularly vexing issue that we must address. “Unless everybody participates, we’re not Tonya Matthews collaborating, and merging analysis with creativity. “All those things need to happen more in schools in K-12 to prepare every person not just for career direction, but also for living in a 21st century technology-driven global economy and for the challenges we face inAmerica today,”he says.“This is a time when we need to shift our aims in science and math education toward more applications and recognizing (their) relevance. I think the enthusiasm as of late toward STEM education is going to be a great motivator for that.” Joseph Dunbar, associate vice president for research and associate dean of the graduate school atWayne State University,explains that all children have a natural curiosity and interest in science or why things are the way they are,but in many cases, science educators stifle that curiosity with how they’re told to teach. “If you go to the fifth grade and survey most students, and ask them what they’re interested in or what they’d like to do, about 60 percent are interestedinthingsthatarerelatedtoSTEMbecause they find things like that fascinating,”Dunbar says. “And then we come along with a school system Karl Klimek | 69
- 3. going (to be a successful region),” Moudgil says. “It isn’t that (underprivileged students) lack any ability or intelligence, they simply didn’t have the opportunity, and we want to provide that early on.” Greg Johnson, science consultant at Wayne Regional Educational Service Agency, which provides a broad spectrum of services and support to Wayne County’s 33 school districts, related an anecdote about his time as a chemistry teacher in Detroit Public Schools, where one of his students never completed homework and never studied, but aced every test. “I said, ‘You could get a scholarship. How come you’re not putting a little more effort in here?’”Johnson recalls.“He looked at me and said, ‘You know, I’m not going to live past 21, so I want to have fun while I’m here.’And I thought (about) the loss of potential. Think of our society, if we could give a vision and a belief to those students who don’t think they can have a vision and a belief for their lives.” This vision for the future is important, but what about the roughly 274,000 STEM-related jobs that recent studies show will need to be filled in Michigan by 2018? Moudgil explains that much of that skills gap was created when the economic downturn forced so many Michigan workers to leave the state. This exodus included not only experienced workers, but also recent high school and college graduates, all of whom left the area in search of better opportunities. Norton adds that we aren’t dedicating enough energy to retraining more of the adults who lost jobs during the recession.“We have so many people who could be trained to fill these jobs, but we’re so focused on the future,”he says.“We aren’t focused on getting people to work right now.” Matthews agrees with that sentiment.“I love STEM because STEM is a poverty game-changer. It giveskidstechnicalskills,anditteachesthemhowto think,”she says.“It’s not as if Detroit and Southeast Michiganarevacant,buttheusualsuspectsforwhat we thought were the geniuses who should go into STEM are no longer the primary constituents. And what we’re looking at are the kids and families we forgot to teach and address, and get into (a STEM education). But that’s also what I like about STEM, that it’s culturally ubiquitous, for lack of a better term.You don’t have to figure out how you’re going to relate to this particular picture or perspective.We can all find our spaces in it.” But Klimek stresses that educators are now put in a troubling position due to policies that threaten teachers and administrators if they don’t get their math or reading scores up, he says, and ultimately put the school on warning. “STEM education is about innovation and creativity,”he says.“That region (of the brain that controls our) ability to think and to process is not tapped biologically when we’re under threat or in survival mode. If we take the entire system and threaten or bully it – by policy and by running down a path that we should’ve never run down to begin with, but we did – it’s no wonder that we’re not getting a lot of creative teachers who are feeling empowered.” Peg Upmeyer, director of Arts & Scraps, a nonprofitthatprovidesartandSTEMkitsconsisting of recycled materials to adults and children, speaks up. “I’m the grassroots of all this,” she says. “I’ve trained 300 teachers in the last three years in hands- on science.” She points out that many of the K-12 teachers who are tasked with giving our children a well- rounded education are actually more versed in language arts and social studies. “They’re scared to death of science,”Upmeyer says. “What we do is put together a project and have them actually do it, so they can experience hands-on learning because they haven’t done it themselves, and then we show them how to help the kids think. It’s the same way you teach art.” Upmeyer explains that if the facilitation is in teaching kids how to think and find success in their own thought processes, it doesn’t matter what they do in the end.“It’s about their ideas, how they got there, the steps they took, and how they analyze how they thought afterwords,” she says. “It’s the idea of understanding how to generate thought.” — J. Nadir Omowale feature roundtable feature roundtable Mike Gallagher Peg Upmeyer Joseph Dunbar 70 |