The next Initiative to lead this decade also set its focus away from art. The Educate to Innovate Initiative, a government program created under the Obama Administration, set its sights on teaching innovation through STEM. STEM is an acronym that stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. It was felt that this was the pathway to ready students for their future careers, making it the center of attention for primary and secondary schools. This step again left out the arts, which often result in further defunding and calls for educators to push students towards STEM areas and again away from the arts.
However, recently, some have begun to realize that exposure to the arts increases creativity and innovation. Students enrolled in the arts learn communication skills, critical thinking, problem-solving, and adaptability. That said, "educational leaders have called for more balanced ways to teaching and learning, which includes, the arts, design, and humanities... This design for a balanced approach fostered science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) education." (Quigley, 1) This balance was confirmed by a research study performed by The Brookings Institution, a non-profit public policy organization in Washington, D.C. According to Brian Kisida and Daniel H. Bowen of the Brookings Institution,
“When we restrict our analysis to elementary schools, which comprised 86 percent of the sample and were the primary target of the program, we also find that increases in arts learning positively and significantly affect students’ school engagement, college aspirations, and their inclinations to draw upon works of art as a means for empathizing with others. In terms of school engagement, students in the treatment group were more likely to agree that schoolwork is enjoyable, makes them think about things in new ways, and that their school offers programs, classes, and activities that keep them interested in school.”
The Georgia Department of Education, South Carolina Coalition for Math and Science, and the D.C. Everest School District in Weston, Wisconsin, have all enacted a STEAM program. These education institutions cite that they need to prepare students for 21st-century positions as the main reason for implementing STEAM. Dr. Kristine Gillmore of D.C. Everest Area School District makes a strong point in stating that we must prepare students for careers that do not yet exist. These future careers can be in many industries. Nevertheless, with STEAM programming readying students with technical, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills, they will be ready to think on their feet to maneuver as the employment landscape evolves. These schools believe the best way to do this is to prepare students to be critical thinkers who have mastered creative problem-solving. This belief explains why 2 of the three institutions profiled refer to the "A" in STEAM as Art/Design. Designers are often touted as problem solvers within the Art realm.
South Carolina Coalition for Math and Science has a partnership with Clemson University to implement STEAM programs into their schools. This partnership is interesting because the coalition is named a STEM organization, yet they are now implementing STEAM instead. According to the videos on their website, the world economy is changing. While more monies are funneling into the schools per student, the schools themselves have not changed in terms of curriculum and pedagogy. They also feel as though STEAM's implementation will ready students for careers that do not yet exist. One of their videos explicitly states that the program would funnel students into graphic design, robotics, animation, and coding. This career path is more than likely due to the merge of art with technology.
Hopefully, STEAM will gain as much traction as the STEM push in primary and secondary schools. We do not realize it, yet, as a society, we have slowly trained our educators, parents, and students not to value the arts as a career option. Consistently pushing other programs for so many years while simultaneously removing arts programs has left a stigma on pursuing an art career.
