A Critique of “STEM” Education

While a mutually agreed-upon definition of STEM education remains elusive, there is no doubt that instructional models and ideas put forward with the STEM label have had a tremendous impact on thinking, debate, and practice in schools worldwide. At issue is the degree to which some or all the STEM disciplines must be taught in a concurrent or combined way, so curricula can qualify for the STEM education label. In this manuscript, we unpack the various perspectives of STEM that have evolved recently and propose the acronym I-STEM for any integrated instructional blending of the individual STEM elements. We examine some problematic issues related to what seems a premature acceptance of I-STEM and conclude with some suggestions for the science education community relative to the emergence of STEM. This article is written from the perspective of improving the teaching and learning of science, and if I-STEM can be shown to further advance that aim, it would be foolish not to embrace it. However, if I-STEM is being promoted on the tenuous empirical and philosophical foundation we see presently, we must slow down. We must ensure that we really want this revolution in science education to succeed. We worry that science content and process learning opportunities might too easily be lost in a rush to teach STEM in a manner that gives substantial instructional time and energy to all of the disciplines regardless of the context of the classroom in which it is taught.