Opinion
The STEAMS (Science, Tech, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics, Sports) approach needs to take over the STEM approach.
Stuck in a time warp, we need to break the shell and realise that the contemporary world demands designers, musicians, dancers, painters, actors and sportspersons.
“All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he/she grows up” – Pablo Picasso.
While we continue to endure an archaic education system, we move further away from the current social reality. Today, the world is blessed with artists and sportspersons who are often unappreciated and have underdeveloped skills because our education system refuses to stop catering to the needs of the Industrial Revolution. Stuck in a time warp, we need to break the shell and realise that the contemporary world demands designers, musicians, dancers, painters, actors and sportspersons.
Remember how as a child, we were often told to fill colours inside a given illustration without crossing the lines? What if the artist inside the child wanted to explore and innovate outside the specified lines of ‘education’? When the curriculum omits the whys of curiosity, it discourages the inner creativity that turns talent into passion; leading to loss of ability to take up an occupation in arts and sports.
In his TED Talk Do Schools Kill Creativity? Sir Ken Robinson said, “Instead of growing into creativity in school, we grow out of it. Students all over the world have had more years of schooling than they care to count. During this process, students are taught that making a mistake is a sin. We have planted in our students’ minds a picture of a perfectly, carefully drawn life.”
Therefore, there arises a need for schools that allow students to pick the size that fits them best: a school that caters to the uniqueness of the student and allows him/her to develop his/her talent. Centuries to come will be dominated by robots, making it our responsibility to provide a niche to the next generation to become inventors, musicians, painters, athletes, mathematicians who can, in turn, bring humanity to another level.
As put rightly in words by Pink Floyd – “A musician should be allowed to be a musician, a mathematician should be allowed to be a mathematician and a runner should be allowed to run.”
However, young artists and talented sportspersons often have to juggle between the unnerving pressures of work/ field and school wherein many schools fail to cooperate and support their talent and opportunities. This results in either an increasing number of school drop-outs or shrinking mental health. Thus arises the need for separate schools for young talent and its nurturing; the STEAMS (Science, Tech, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics, Sports) approach needs to take over the STEM approach.