STEM, comprised of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, is often hailed as the key to the future, the source from which innovation blossoms. This makes sense; without STEM we wouldn’t have the computer, the microwave, and like twenty different ways to give yourself cancer — all creations that have heavily impacted modern life. In order to foster the next generation of boundary-pushing talent, STEM has been discreetly injected into all aspects of a child’s development. Nowadays, you can expect your STEM child to be watching a STEM show while playing with their STEM play kit after they get back from their STEM fishing camp. From TV shows to events, there has arisen a sudden obsession with all things STEM. But I’m afraid this enamoration does not originate from a deep and profound respect for the hard sciences. Recently, STEM has become synonymous with the concept of success, to the point where other pursuits are viewed as a waste of time. The recent proliferation of STEM-related material is due to the belief that having a STEM career will bring prosperity, a belief that not only distorts the original ambitions of the STEM initiative, but also actively harms education as an experience. And we may ask ourselves, how did we get here?

To understand the effect of STEM today, we must understand where it comes from. The first instance of something resembling the modern concept of a STEM initiative would be in 1958 when the government passed the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) in response to the Soviets launching Sputnik. The launch of Sputnik scared the government into thinking that American education was falling behind communist education, resulting in the new act bringing millions of dollars in federal STEM education funding to American schools to hopefully one day create weapons to defeat the Soviets. That’s right — every time an American child watches “Blippi,” communism suffers yet another loss.

Something interesting about the NDEA and the modern introduction of STEM education is the reason why it was created. Rather than being introduced to advance humanity, STEM education was introduced in the US to bridge a perceived gap in technological prowess between us and our opponents. STEM was not an initiative introduced to make Americans well-rounded, well-educated people. It was instead introduced for the nation’s survival, to ensure that we wouldn’t fall behind in our war. This highlights a major weakness of STEM education — its focus on the hard sciences can often leave other fields like the arts, history, and business ignored. And while we can argue that eliminating business school is for the better, students can end up missing essential skills like media and financial literacy. Under the threat of potentially losing the war, the US had to go all-in on the hard sciences to advance our arsenal. Perhaps a wholehearted focus on STEM is only warranted when there is no other choice.

The other stop we must take when traveling through the history of STEM is in 2007, when President Bush passed the America COMPETES Act, which officially introduced STEM as we know it today by offering grants and supporting teacher training in the hard sciences. Manufacturing in the US had been in a steady decline after globalization was ushered in the 70s, leaving no other choice than for the US to become a service-based economy. The America COMPETES Act was introduced to ensure that the US remained economically competitive in STEM service jobs that increasingly dominated the global market. This bill is impressive, especially when considering that in 2002 President Bush had passed the No Child Left Behind Act, which effectively destroyed American public education for years to come. Perhaps we misunderestimated President Bush’s capability to pass sensible education legislation.

When taking both the NDEA and the America COMPETES Act into account, one thing becomes clear: neither bill was created with the blanket goal of “improving education.” Rather, each bill increased STEM funding for their own purposes; the NDEA using STEM to improve national defense, and the America COMPETES Act using STEM to improve global economic competitiveness. The focus on STEM was clearly propelled by militaristic and economic ambitions rather than out of a belief that it will lead to a superior education. When you really look at it, there fundamentally isn’t much difference between the modern connection between STEM and money and the earlier connections between STEM and safety/prosperity. It’s the same as it always was; STEM education has always been prioritized for what it can lead to, rather than whether the information itself can contribute to a holistic education. 

This brings us to the STEM of the present day. While the term STEM may refer to the hard sciences, the definition refracts into most people’s heads as dollar signs. STEM has become synonymous with a well-paid, cushy job. And you know what? For the most part, that’s true. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median annual wage of a STEM job is $101,650 while the median annual wage of a non-STEM job is $46,680. The sheer disparity between the two is referred to by expert UTDologists as “The Reason Why We Have So Many CS Majors.” The issues with STEM’s association with success and money have less to do with STEM itself and more with everything that STEM isn’t. Associating STEM with success has the adverse effect of creating a dichotomy where everything that isn’t STEM is associated with failure. Suddenly, pursuing creative fields is seen as lesser to the pursuit of STEM fields. This leads eventually to the situation we face today: people begin viewing the arts as being pointless when compared with STEM. “Why draw when you can engineer humanity’s future,” they say. The embodiment of human expression ends up getting relegated to a position of mindless entertainment, rather than being something to be engaged with. You end up with people who believe that they’re too good for the arts, which leads to them missing out on a fundamental aspect of the human experience.

The mindset of the supposed superiority of STEM is at its most distilled when it comes to children. Parents, wanting their children to be successful, push for overbearing STEM initiatives that unwittingly lead to a less holistic education. For example, some American schools have begun eliminating recess, deeming it a waste of time that could be better spent in the classroom. Despite not actively facilitating learning, recess is considered to be an essential part of a child’s physical and social development. Through the recent obsession with STEM, education is reduced down to a numbers game; the more hours of active STEM education, the better. To these people, putting elementary-aged children knee-deep into the CS trenches is inherently more valuable than recess or PE. The point of education now is little more than a tool to be used to get more money, as opposed to the intellectual pursuit of knowledge. STEM to many people represents a way to escape from poverty, a way to one day have your kids make more than you do. And that’s why so many snake oil salesmen target parents with STEM edutainment scams.

STEM edutainment is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, edutainment shows by companies such as PBS can help a child familiarize themselves with various simple STEM concepts like geology or math. The issues arise when it comes to unmoderated STEM content on platforms such as YouTube Kids. Thousands of hours of vaguely STEM-related content are produced on such platforms that can be succinctly summarized with the word “brainrot.” In the videos, popular characters are often thoughtlessly thrust together in an almost dream-like fashion. The educational value of these videos tends to be near zero, and the visuals in the video are often overstimulating, forcing my synapses to do loop-de-loops to understand just what exactly I’m looking at. Parents can be tricked into letting their kids watch this content because they see “STEM” and immediately assume that the content is trustworthy, as they associate STEM with good things. A similar phenomenon occurs when it comes to the world of STEM toys. An actual STEM toy would be something like a toy microscope or a chemistry set, something that spurs the love of the sciences in the child’s heart through the act of play.  When it comes to most STEM toys, however, people will sell just about anything and slap a STEM sticker on it. Take the archetypical STEM toy: slime. As cool as the stuff is, I’m not sure what about it is defined as STEM. Does the fact that you can squeeze it count as science? Does the fact that you can tear it apart count as engineering? The only STEM thing I can think of is how the toy sellers used mathematics to calculate how much profit they’d be making off of their so-called “STEM” product. These products exploit parents and their associations between STEM and success to sell sham products and services, hoping that the parents are desperate enough to do anything so that their kids will have a leg up in the job market.

So, what is driving our current obsession with STEM? I think that most people would agree that on multiple levels, it’s money. Billionaires like Bill Gates and almost every corporation are pumping billions of dollars into STEM initiatives so that they always have an evergreen labor pool. On a more personal level, us and our loved ones know that there’s generally more money to be found in STEM fields, and as such there’s often a gentle pressure to go into these fields. But then there’s still the question of what we should do. Should we eliminate STEM? I don’t think so; I quite like my toaster. Should we overthrow capitalism? I feel like that would be a little blasé and maybe just a little out of reach, so no. Instead, I would recommend everyone try and find at least one hobby in the arts and stick with it. Even if you don’t think that you’re an artist, I promise that you’ll learn to love it. That’s what happened to me. Because otherwise, you may get a good job, drive a large automobile, and live in a beautiful house, but you still won’t be satisfied with life.

I may be biased, but STEM is awesome and an important part of any education. It’s just that when it begins to overpower other elements in a holistic education like the arts, it starts to become problematic. If you’re someone who grew up looking down on the arts for being stupid, I’d encourage you to give it a try. After all, you may grow to love them like I did.