1. feature
For this edition of Roundtable, Ambassador
assembled a panel of experts at Lawrence
Technological University to examine the current
lack of high-tech skills among our schoolchildren
and job seekers statewide.
Muchhasbeenwrittenanddiscussedinrecent
years about the need for a stronger emphasis on
science, technology, engineering and mathematics
– more commonly referred to with the acronym
STEM – in our education system nationally.
Michigan is a technology powerhouse and has
been for more than a century.But even with serious
reductions in the region’s automotive industry over
the past decade,we have more engineers per capita
than any other state in the union. We’re a leader in
biomedical and pharmaceutical technology and are
witnessing tremendous growth in the information
technology sector.
Unfortunately, our education and job-training
systemsarenotkeepingupwiththedemandforthe
highly skilled workers who are needed for the near-
and long-term viability of our economy. If we are to
remain a leader in these fields,radical changes must
be made at all levels – from K-12 to the college level,
and even during adult education and job-applicant
training if we have any hope of catching up.
“All businesses are looking for people to
solve problems,”says Jason Lee, executive director
at the Detroit Area Pre-College Engineering
Program (DAPCEP). DAPCEP provides a variety
of STEM educational programming to historically
underrepresentedK-12students.“ASTEMtechnical
background provides you the mindset to solve
problems,”Lee adds.
Tonya Matthews, president and CEO of
Detroit’s Michigan Science Center, says this
is about more than just jobs for Michigan and
the United States. “Folks with a strong STEM
background and instinct are problem-solvers, but
ultimately, they will save the world.That is also the
motivator,”she says.
But Matthews argues that STEM hasn’t been
promoted in terms of innovation or solving the
world’s biggest problems, but rather in terms of
getting a job,forming a career and building a family.
“When they’re 30, they’ll get that,” she says.
“But in the meantime, they’re interested in saving
the world, changing the world, seeing something
that they know is wrong and wanting to fix it.STEM
is an important avenue for doing this, and I think
that’s why it’s important to any region or state that
is interested in investing in the next generation of
whomever will lead it.”
Megan Schrauben, integrated education
consultant at the Michigan Department of
Education, explains that nationally we talk about
the big problems we’re going to have to solve in the
future and about the economic development in our
state.
“STEM provides those ready opportunities to
have (students) be able to be successful no matter
what career path they choose down the road,”
Schrauben says. “Whether they go into a STEM
career or not, we also want them to be critical
thinkers, voting on policy and other things that
really impact our livelihood.”
Mike Gallagher, science education consultant
at Oakland Schools, says that the essence of STEM
education is about putting knowledge to use,
CONNECTING CONTEXT TO CONTENT
EDUCATORS AND EXPERTS DISCUSS THE GROWING ROLE OF STEM PROGRAMS IN MICHIGAN
roundtable
feature
roundtable
Mike Gallagher, Virinder Moudgil
Top Row (Left to Right): Joseph Dunbar, Peg Upmeyer, Mike Gallagher,
Jason Lee, Greg Johnson, Frank Norton III, Virinder Moudgil. Bottom
Row: Karl Klimek, Tonya Matthews, Megan Schrauben.
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2. Megan Schrauben
photos:JennaBelevender
Jason Lee, Greg Johnson, Frank Norton III, Karl Klimek
and a social structure that progressively turns off
the lights of those students, so that by the time you
get to the end of the spigot, you only have a sliver.
So, the scientific question is: What are we doing to
turn off the light?”
Lawrence Technological University President
Virinder Moudgil agrees, and he says it’s important
to excite students with learning in their early school
years.“When kids go to ninth or 10th grade, they
think science and technology are difficult, so they
take soft courses,”Moudgil says.“We want to start
them young, so they are not lost. When you get
them early on – like our robotics program, which
is grade four and up (and incorporates) computer
science, mathematics and mechanical engineering
allinoneproject–theydon’tevenknowthat’swhat
they’re doing.When they grow with this, science is
a passion for them.”
Karl Klimek, executive director at Square
One Education Network, a nonprofit that provides
grant funding to schools and other K-12 learning
environments, says schools should apply more
project-based education in the classroom to engage
students and get them more excited about learning.
“I’m a longtime educator, and 25 years ago
the kids in my class built rockets,” Klimek says.
“I taught reading, math, statistics, just about
everything because we were all fabulously excited
about rockets.And there are very few teachers that
I’m aware of who build rockets anymore because
they’re being required to do paperwork. So, I want
more teachers building rockets or something like
that, and that’s what our organization funds.”
Frank Norton III, associate director of
Michigan’s Project Lead the Way, the nation’s
leading provider of STEM programs and teacher
professional development models, says we need to
do a better job of connecting context to content.“I
think that’s where you really connect with students,
and you get them to understand what they’re
learning and why they’re learning it,”he says.“That’s
where we can reach the students,and right now we
lack that specifically in the schools where we need it
the most.”
Norton is especially concerned that we aren’t
doing enough to provide a stronger education for
underprivileged students in the state. They will
arguably need a better education than their more
advantaged peers in order to make up for the lack
of opportunity that their economic status provides.
Moudgil also sees this as a particularly vexing issue
that we must address.
“Unless everybody participates, we’re not
Tonya Matthews
collaborating, and merging analysis with creativity.
“All those things need to happen more in
schools in K-12 to prepare every person not just for
career direction, but also for living in a 21st century
technology-driven global economy and for the
challenges we face inAmerica today,”he says.“This
is a time when we need to shift our aims in science
and math education toward more applications
and recognizing (their) relevance. I think the
enthusiasm as of late toward STEM education is
going to be a great motivator for that.”
Joseph Dunbar, associate vice president for
research and associate dean of the graduate school
atWayne State University,explains that all children
have a natural curiosity and interest in science or
why things are the way they are,but in many cases,
science educators stifle that curiosity with how
they’re told to teach.
“If you go to the fifth grade and survey most
students, and ask them what they’re interested
in or what they’d like to do, about 60 percent are
interestedinthingsthatarerelatedtoSTEMbecause
they find things like that fascinating,”Dunbar says.
“And then we come along with a school system
Karl Klimek
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3. going (to be a successful region),” Moudgil says.
“It isn’t that (underprivileged students) lack any
ability or intelligence, they simply didn’t have the
opportunity, and we want to provide that early on.”
Greg Johnson, science consultant at Wayne
Regional Educational Service Agency, which
provides a broad spectrum of services and support
to Wayne County’s 33 school districts, related an
anecdote about his time as a chemistry teacher in
Detroit Public Schools, where one of his students
never completed homework and never studied, but
aced every test.
“I said, ‘You could get a scholarship. How
come you’re not putting a little more effort in
here?’”Johnson recalls.“He looked at me and said,
‘You know, I’m not going to live past 21, so I want
to have fun while I’m here.’And I thought (about)
the loss of potential. Think of our society, if we
could give a vision and a belief to those students
who don’t think they can have a vision and a belief
for their lives.”
This vision for the future is important, but
what about the roughly 274,000 STEM-related jobs
that recent studies show will need to be filled in
Michigan by 2018?
Moudgil explains that much of that skills gap
was created when the economic downturn forced
so many Michigan workers to leave the state. This
exodus included not only experienced workers, but
also recent high school and college graduates, all of
whom left the area in search of better opportunities.
Norton adds that we aren’t dedicating enough
energy to retraining more of the adults who lost
jobs during the recession.“We have so many people
who could be trained to fill these jobs, but we’re so
focused on the future,”he says.“We aren’t focused
on getting people to work right now.”
Matthews agrees with that sentiment.“I love
STEM because STEM is a poverty game-changer. It
giveskidstechnicalskills,anditteachesthemhowto
think,”she says.“It’s not as if Detroit and Southeast
Michiganarevacant,buttheusualsuspectsforwhat
we thought were the geniuses who should go into
STEM are no longer the primary constituents. And
what we’re looking at are the kids and families we
forgot to teach and address, and get into (a STEM
education). But that’s also what I like about STEM,
that it’s culturally ubiquitous, for lack of a better
term.You don’t have to figure out how you’re going
to relate to this particular picture or perspective.We
can all find our spaces in it.”
But Klimek stresses that educators are now put
in a troubling position due to policies that threaten
teachers and administrators if they don’t get their
math or reading scores up, he says, and ultimately
put the school on warning.
“STEM education is about innovation and
creativity,”he says.“That region (of the brain that
controls our) ability to think and to process is not
tapped biologically when we’re under threat or in
survival mode. If we take the entire system and
threaten or bully it – by policy and by running down
a path that we should’ve never run down to begin
with, but we did – it’s no wonder that we’re not
getting a lot of creative teachers who are feeling
empowered.”
Peg Upmeyer, director of Arts & Scraps, a
nonprofitthatprovidesartandSTEMkitsconsisting
of recycled materials to adults and children, speaks
up. “I’m the grassroots of all this,” she says. “I’ve
trained 300 teachers in the last three years in hands-
on science.”
She points out that many of the K-12 teachers
who are tasked with giving our children a well-
rounded education are actually more versed in
language arts and social studies.
“They’re scared to death of science,”Upmeyer
says. “What we do is put together a project and
have them actually do it, so they can experience
hands-on learning because they haven’t done it
themselves, and then we show them how to help
the kids think. It’s the same way you teach art.”
Upmeyer explains that if the facilitation is in
teaching kids how to think and find success in their
own thought processes, it doesn’t matter what they
do in the end.“It’s about their ideas, how they got
there, the steps they took, and how they analyze
how they thought afterwords,” she says. “It’s the
idea of understanding how to generate thought.”
— J. Nadir Omowale
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roundtable
feature
roundtable
Mike Gallagher
Peg Upmeyer
Joseph Dunbar
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