Dirty Vocational Subjects Sullying the August Disciplines

https://www.wired.com/story/how-we-learned-to-love-pedagogical-vapor-stem/

"just tell me what STEM is. Above all, I want to know how science, a byword for all knowledge, and mathematics, the great harmonies of the universe—two august disciplines that have defined education since antiquity—yoked themselves to the vocational field of engineering and, worst of all, to “technology,” which could mean almost anything from space mirrors to VSCO girls."

... I can't tell if Virginia is being faceitious or not.  Probably not.  Brains are paramount in academics, they may as well be in jars.
I wonder what Matt Crawford would say about this dismissal of manual intelligence.

As one of those vocational teacher types the 'august disciplines" have yoked themselves to, I'm once again thumped in the head with just how classist the education system is, but it was a bit of a shock to see WIRED advocating it.  I wrote about how there really is no such thing as STEM, at least in Ontario classrooms, in September.   Nice to see WIRED weighing in on the pedagogical smokescreen that is STEM, though I don't think they disentangled it very effectively.

Good to remember that not all academics are so prejudiced.

Mathematics (aka: 'the great harmonies of the universe') and science ("a byword for knowledge") are pretty much all STEM are about when it comes to application in the classroom.  There has been no real movement on technology and engineering in the high schools where we are.  All STEM has done is paid for math manipulables and fund science.  Technology and especially engineering are still an afterthought at best.  If you've been fooled by the STEM smokescreen to think that there is any collaboration between those august disciplines and the filthy vocational classes, you can relax, because there isn't.  If you want to be an engineer in university, take science and maths courses, because that's all there are in most high schools.



If you've ever wondered why technology students (and their teachers) feel disenfranchised in their own schools, WIRED has made that adundantly clear in this month's edition.  We're less than, we get it.

An op-ed piece on how the august disciplines that have defined education since antiquity have yoked themselves to vocational fields, along with a cover article about one of those vocational types who dropped out of engineering to make things.  WIRED's come here go away editorial stance is a bit hard to follow.

You'd expect academic types in The Atlantic to rip on skills based education in favour of their own university disciplines, but WIRED ripping on engineering and technology?  I'm at a loss to understand the end game there.  The philosopher in me wants to pull out Aristophanes' Clouds and take a swing at the hallowed halls of academia while the technician wants to point out that people were apprenticing in the trades millenia before anyone was throwing square hats in the air, if we're going to talk about what has defined education since antiquity.

STEM is indeed nonsense, and I don't disagree with a lot of what Virginia says about how the STEM smokescreen has gone down, other than to say that STEM never really happened at all for those of us at the bottom end of the educational value spectrum.

... because there isn't.  It's a just SM, as it's always been: https://temkblog.blogspot.com/2019/09/there-is-no-stem.html