A Spy in the House of STEM

I was about to post a blog piece that was introspective, soul-searching, and serious, but thought better of it.

Who wants to read such boring prattle? I used to fill up volumes with that kind of crap back in the 1970s and 1980s.

Let me tell you about something I did recently that made me feel good.

As of recent, circumstances have driven me into the employ of a company that provides afterschool “enrichment” programs for grade school children in the area (and a number of places around the country, so I’ve been told recently). Originally, this company provided chess classes, but not they have branched into “robotics” and allegedly engineering-related classes. The kids spend an hour a week assembling remote-controlled vehicles built from plastic parts in kits – sort of off-brand Legos. Each kit has a few cheap motor, a battery pack, and the remote control. 

The purpose for this is, allegedly, to interest kids in STEM-related stuff. For parents and school officials, STEM is big. STEM is what’s going to save their kids from abject poverty, scrounging through dumpsters and sleeping in underpasses. While the rest of the world (or at least the neighborhood) collapses into naked savagery and cannibalism, STEM kids will be heading for air-conditioned offices in their auto-drive cars, ready to spend the day designing plastic robot dogs that catch ping pong balls, or managing the folks who do.

I could go into this in greater detail, but why bother? The folks who designed the courses and manage the program haven’t, so why should I? Teachers in this program are “trained” through a series of videos that, needless to say, provide them with very little that resembles the reality of what they’ll find at the ground level. It’s sort of like finding oneself in a full-scale firefight after having just completed Basic Training. One is promised some sort of calculated strategies, and instead receives – mayhem!

Mayhem!

In a few brief months I’ve gathered enough war stories to bore you and annoy you all through the coming cold winter months. Some kids actually want to put together stuff from the robot kits. Some are actually quite good at it. Some kids just want to exercise their right to refuse to do anything you ask them. Some want to throw things around.

Only a few – but a significant few – we’ll either raise their hands, or step up and ask you, “Do I really have to do this?”

All I can tell them is, no. You don’t have to do this. What do you want to do?

A few of them asked, “Can I color pictures?”

I said, sure. Would you like to color pictures of dinosaurs?”

They look up, their eyes suddenly bright at the prospect, and nod.

After the first week, I started to bring downloaded coloring pictures of dinosaurs I found online. “Be prepared.”

They’re not robots, but we can call it STEM, because ... science.

Is it what my supervisors want me to do? Of course not. Is it what the parents want me to do? I have no idea. Do they want me to indoctrinate them into a world of engineering that will allegedly guarantee them relevance and value in a changing world? Or do they want me to simply keep them busy for an hour a week so that they don’t get into some greater trouble.

What am I supposed to “teach” these kids?

I can teach them what my supervisors expect me to teach them – but no. The kids never listen to me the way they listen to other teachers. They sense the anarchy in my bones. They know I have no “authority.” I’m a stranger in these parts. They can do what they want, whether it’s playing with robots or not playing with robots.

All I can teach is what I am, and what I love. That’s all the authority I’ve got.

And what I am, and what I love, often includes dinosaurs.

Last Thursday, one of the students in a “circuits” (i.e. circuitry) class I’m subbing for gets up from her table, walks to the place on the floor where the jackets and backpacks are being stored. She can’t be older than a first-grader. She lies down on one of the jackets as if it were a cushion. She looks tired, bored, and sad. The other teacher I’m working with asks her, “What’s the matter?” Doesn’t she want to learn about circuits and play with the motors and propellers attached to them?

She shakes her head. No. She looks even sadder.

My co-teacher asks her, “Is there anything you want to do?”

Even sadder shake of her head.

So I ask her, “Would you like to color some pictures of dinosaurs?”

Her eyes light up. She rises from her improvised cushion like Lazarus rising from his tomb.

We walk over to the box where I keep my teaching stuff. She chooses one of the dinosaur coloring pictures from my folder. She races back to her table with the picture and finds crayons … somewhere. Soon, she runs back to me and shows me the result of her coloring.

“See my dinosaur!”

“It’s beautiful,” I tell her. “I especially like what you did with the green.” I point to the region along the dinosaur’s back.”

She runs back to her table. Somewhere, somehow, she’s found a pair of scissors. She carefully cuts the dinosaur away from its paper background, then runs back to me.

“See my dinosaur!”

“Beautiful!” I say. “You did an incredible job of coloring the dinosaur and cutting him out.”

“Can I take him home?”

“Of course.”

“I love my dinosaur!”

“Who wouldn’t?”

The class was the last one in a session, and it’s part of the regimen to hand out medals to the groups and teams that did the best with projects and a final competition. A lot of the kids get a kick out of the medals, and that’s understandable and great. I’m not on competitions, so I don’t stress those kinds of things, but if my supervisors want competitions, I’ll do what’s needed to comply. Everybody gets medals.

But what warmed my heart on that last day of class, so close to the Christmas holidays, was the girl with her crayon-colored dinosaur. She was more proud of her dinosaur than the “STEM” medal. And that’s fine with me. Some kids do robots. Some don’t. Some are big on engineering. Some want to color dinosaurs.  We need as many kids coloring dinosaurs as we do building robots. More power to all of them.

I’m a lousy employee.

But I may be a decent teacher.

Merry Christmas.