By: Emma B.
Oftentimes,
a large and overwhelming problem in modern day society is the next generation.
Many people wonder how their children will learn the skills they need in order
to be a productive and active member of society. School systems have made many
attempts at working their way around this issue, but the programs grabbing the
most attention out of them all are STEM & STEAM. These two programs
eventually became so large that they started having entire schools dedicated to
them. However recently, the program getting more attention of the two has
become the STEAM program. There are only a few STEAM schools in the entirety of
the United States and even fewer in the state of Georgia. Recently I’ve had the
opportunity to attend Duluth Georgia’s STEAM School, Coleman Middle School. This school is rather different
from any other school I’ve ever experienced, and I’d like to share my thoughts
as to why going to a STEAM school (if handled by the right people of course)
can be an amazing experience.
What are STEM & STEAM:
If I
had to guess, half of you reading this article have absolutely no idea what the
heck a STEAM school even is. However before we define STEAM, we have to define
what S.T.E.M is. This is because one builds and improves upon things
established in the other. So that leaves the question, what is S.T.E.M? Well,
it is a variation of the common core that puts science, technology, engineering
and math in the focus (hence the acronym). This is because they were considered
21st century skills that students needed to build a brighter future
for themselves. However, even though this system was okay, many professionals
considered its thought process to be outdated. This is because the arts and
history were completely ignored in this program. This meant they were ignoring
entire sections of other 21st century skills that shined through
with the arts. So the program was adjusted and from it the STEAM program was
born. This program was roughly the same as STEM, except it incorporates the
arts (once again, hence the acronym). This allows for far more potential than
STEM could offer so it was quickly implemented into the Gwinnett County School
systems once they redistricted. That is how my current middle school, Coleman
Middle School came about. Almost immediately, I noticed there were many things
that made it different from other schools.
Relationships:
The
first thing I feel makes going to a STEAM school much more unique is that the
primary form of learning is learning how things relate to each other. This is in
terms of both subjects & between students and teachers. STEM had bits and
pieces of this, but STEAM definitely put it in the spotlight. Subject-wise, STEAM
puts emphasis on the relationship between subjects and how they interconnect.
For example it shows how a science projects uses not just science but math for
calculating, language arts for putting your results down on paper, history for
researching the history of the topic and arts for putting it together in a
reasonable manner. These relationships make the learning environment a lot more
fun and entertaining. This also makes the whole system far more balanced and
easier to adapt to. They also incorporate arts and history, which makes writers
and historians more involved the STEAM setting. This makes the learning
environment a lot better.
There
is another type of relationship building that happens in STEAM learning that
doesn’t happen in other schools. That is the relationship between students and
teachers. Oftentimes in middle school I find that children, in their stress,
annoyance and frustration often see teachers as more of an object and not a
person. The only time I haven’t seen this happen is when the teacher doesn’t
give homework. However, I’ve noticed in the STEAM environment, it’s almost a
priority for teachers and students to talk on a personal level. I regularly
hear that the teachers are eager to get to know the students and work with them
as long as they too are hardworking. However, by talking to kids on a personal
level they are inspiring them to work a bit harder on the subconscious level.
The Daily
Life:
At my STEAM
school, a typical school day is rather different and suited to an environment
for learning. A typical day usually starts off early in the morning with buses
picking and dropping off students anywhere from 8:30-8:50. Then the schedule
diverges based on what grade you’re in but I will be sharing my personal schedule.
My first class in the school day is science class. Typically this class
consists of either doing flipped classroom lessons (lessons where students
teach themselves) or doing projects in 1 of 2 labs. As a side-note, this is the
first school I’ve ever seen that has 2 labs per grade level. Anyway going on,
in science is often when we analyze things for our PBL (project-based learning)
projects. A project-based learning assignment is when we’re given at most 2-3
months to work on real life assignments and learn from them. For example
recently, my PBL assignment is we’re given a crime scene situation in which we
have 2-3 months to solve a crime. During science we use the current things
we’re learning in order to gather evidence. The next class is Humanities. Now
Humanities is different because it’s actually Language Arts and Social Studies
combined into one class. This is because they both promote Language skills as
well as understanding the past in order to comprehend and change the future.
However this change was also made because with this change there are only 3
main classes. This means we have more time per class. Anyway, In Humanities we
often talk about history and then incorporate language arts to write stories in
various genres based off what we’ve learned. We even write some original stuff
as well that is completely fictional. We also write our predictions and results
for parts of the PBL project in this class as well. My final class period is
Math class. In this class we primarily focus on solving calculations for PBL
assignments but we also learn math skills that can help us every now and again
in modern society. Finally the day ends off with Connections classes (or
electives). Mine currently are 1 Semester Theater and Year-Long Advanced
Orchestra. These classes usually are a refreshing break from the core 3
academics because you aren’t forced in a connections. 90% of the time you pick
them yourself which is good for student engagement and time. Overall my days
are usually very engaging and every class feels necessary because truly
everything does connect, even the arts. This overall makes more children pay
attention and therefore grades suddenly become higher.
Time and
Engagement:
Another
thing that I feel makes going to a STEAM school so utterly unique is that we’re
allowed time. Often times in normal schools we’ll only be given at most 2-weeks
to complete a major assignment. This has made dealing with projects rather
difficult and has made many people very bitter toward them. However in the STEAM
environment we’re allowed to have more time to work on assignments. This means
we’re allowed to do our best on the assignment and also become far more
invested. There is also another variety of family we’re allowed to have, free
time. I forgot to mention that at around 12:00 every day (during humanities) I
eat lunch. Then after lunch (based off our behavior) we’re allowed outside. I
find often times when we are allowed outside, student behavior is better and
they play a-lot nicer. I feel this is because we’re trying to better ourselves
so we can relax. This is a nice balance and one that I enjoy thoroughly.
In
conclusion, going to a STEAM school is a very different experience. It has the
potential to be much more connecting to both creative and academic types. Not
only but because both mind-sets have to interconnect in order to survive in
this program, people ending up becoming friends with people they never could
have predicted. However there is a keyword in that phrase. That keyword is
potential. Just like with anything else in life, this program will only work if
it’s in the right hands. This is why I feel very fortunate to go to the STEAM
school that I do. However I feel with the right people, any STEAM school can be
an amazing one.
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