The Need To Include Art In STEM Education
On October 31, 2014, a popular, published, American newspaper, The New York Times, states that some schools decided to add art to STEM curriculum: Science, Technology, Engineer, and Math. So, it will be STEM anymore, but STEAM curriculum: Science, Technology, Engineer, Art, and Math. Art can be music, acting, painting, sculpting, and so much more. People disagree on this strongly because art is not very important nor does it help the students’ future such as STEM. On the other hand, art is important and crucial for everyone to have. This issue needs to take this into a serious matter and cannot take this as a joke. This can affect the students’ future and the next generation of which to come. The future students can help the world a better place. Mr. Leake, who has a first degree in art history, states, “...learning to make even rudimentary drawings is critical to development as an engineer. Typically, engineering students are not comfortable with sketching, they say, ‘Oh, I can’t draw.’ But being able to quickly sketch to communicate an idea is an enormously useful tool. It also helps ‘see’ an idea. To do engineering you’ve got to be able to visualize”. This is very vital to know because art can be a part of many kinds of subjects. By using “Tuning In: Six Benefits of Music Education for Kids”, “Higher education music students’ perceptions of the benefits of participative music making”, and “Necessary Edges: Arts, Empathy, and Education”, music can be part of art such as playing an instrument can help people to improve their memorization, can bond with others, and music can help people to cope with their problems and issues.
Art should be in STEM because playing an instrument can help you to improve your memory. According to the New England Journal of Higher Education, they state, “Music education involves a high level of memorization. Students must be able to read music by sight, play the proper notes on their instrument or recall lyrics. This process benefits the overall memory center of the brain”. This shows how playing an instrument can be very difficult and students have to multitask in music/art. They also state one study about how experimenters made conclusions about musicians who outperformed non-musicians in memory, auditory, and visual tests. This means how playing an instrument uses both sides of the brain, which strengthens memory power. In the text, “Necessary Edges: Arts, Empathy, and Education,” by Yo-Yo Ma, is a professional songwriter and pianist who graduated from Juilliard School and Harvard University, also states similar to Silverstone, “A pianist skilled to both read and improvise music is open to listening to what is around him but knows that, to reach excellence, he needs to filter the imagination through the discipline of knowledge”. Once again, playing an instrument or learning how to play a new piece can be a hard thing to do, which practicing can improve the brain. Yo-Yo Ma is also a great cellist, someone that plays the cello, inspired many people. He played a lot of popular songs such as J.S. Bach/ Gounod: Ave Maria, Bach: Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, Prélude, and so much more! Students can develop motor skills, be able to make sense of visual information, and hand-eye coordination. Art can improve the students’ academic skills!
STEM should become STEAM: Science, Technology, Engineer, Art, and Math because this can connect or bond with other people. In the article, Higher education music students’ perceptions of the benefits of participative music making, there was an experiment about the perceived impact of music students’ active engagement in music making created by two university teachers named Dimitra Kokotsaki and Susan Hallam. They tested seventy-eight music students and were asked to report on the impact that their participation in music making had on their lives. As a result, there are multiple categories, they state, “...music making as a social act, where students felt that they were active contributors to a group outcome, developed a strong sense of belonging, gained popularity and made friends with ‘like-minded’ people, enhancing their social skills, and building up a strong sense of self-esteem and satisfaction”. This shows how playing an instrument and making music create teamwork, which helps people to communicate more and be in a human society. Students can make new friends when doing things that are fun and creative in STEAM. They also state, “...music making influencing the self in terms of personal skill development facilitating the students’ personal identity and encouraging the development of self-achievement, self-confidence and intrinsic motivation”. Art/Music can bring confidence in students because they are determined and intelligent about themselves more if they have practice. In other words, they can express themselves and can also boost higher decision-making skills! This can build their pride, feeling independent, and eager to learn. This is significant because art, music, and acting can have a lot of positive reasons, but one of them is bringing people together and playing an instrument presents the evidence about connecting towards everyone.
Some people may say that STEM should stay how it is and not change because art does not help or do anything, however, art helps students to cope with stress and brings students up their confidence, social skills, intelligence, and positivity. Art is similar to a little helper or a side-kick. For example, in the text, “Necessary Edges: Arts, Empathy, and Education,” Yo-Yo Ma states, “Equilibrium occurs when the information from the edges is available at the core... Only when science and the arts, critical and empathetic reasoning, are linked to the mainstream will we find a sustainable balance in society”. Art can be part of science because they both make students understand the world around them. In other words, art can play a critical role in scientific success. Art such as music can be part of math also! For example, math and music are similar because music notes are fractions. There are half notes, quarter notes, eighth notes, etc. Music notes can help students to be familiar with fractions and can solve math equations more easily. This is vital because playing an instrument or even listening to music reinforces parts of the brain used when doing math by activating the left and right hemisphere and balancing them to improve the students’ cognition. This is similar to the first main point because they both involved with memory and abstract reasoning skills. For example, we know tons of music, so we remember a lot of song’s lyrics such as how the song goes and memorize word by word. STEAM can help broaden the knowledge of individuals which would help or improve the students in any profession that one is headed towards.
Art should be included in STEM because music can help people to cope with their situations and issues. In the text, “Necessary Edges: Arts, Empathy, and Education,” Yo-Yo Ma states, “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”. This is how students should find own balance, own equilibrium, to find their meaning of life. Having art can relieve stress! This is important to know because students should not go to school in order to survive or as a requirement. Parents should understand that their children have dreams that they want to accomplish. For example, Yo-Yo Ma also states, “Empathy is your capacity to imagine what someone else is going through: what they are thinking, feeling, and perceiving. That will not only give you an outlook on who they are-continually corrected by evidence-but also what your alternative possibilities are”. Empathy is like the golden rule because people should treat others like they want to be treated. The golden rule is a good thing to do and should not be doing it just because someone says so. They should understand what they truly want. They should not force or pressure their kids to do things that they do not want to do or else they will have depression, have suicidal thoughts, and feel a sense of loss. School should lead students to feel the desire to learn and have advantages from it. STEAM will help the students to rise and achieve their own goals by resolving the education dilemma.
By using “Tuning In: Six Benefits of Music Education for Kids”, “Higher education music students’ perceptions of the benefits of participative music making”, and “Necessary Edges: Arts, Empathy, and Education”, music can be part of art such as playing an instrument can help people to improve their memory skills, can connect with others, and music can help people to relieve their stress. STEAM helps attract more students in STEM fields. Art will not be useless and a waste of effort. Having art can be so useful or be used as a tool to the students’ lives. So, learn how to play an instrument such as a piano, violin, flute, saxophone, drums, tambourines, and other instruments. STEAM can help lots of people/students mentally and even physically and also emotionally. Also, it can make this world a better place! Parents should support their children and help them to have a good future that they want. If not, the students will ruin their health, which is not good at all. Music/Art can bring people joy. Thus, people should think to themselves, “How can education make students happy?” and “How can we make schools better in our society?”
