“Am I doing it right?” — On Adding Art to STEM
I’ve seen a lot of discussion over the past few years on adding Art to STEM, making cases for STEAM and why art is an important part of early learning. It’s probably not surprising that I agree with this idea, given my profession (User Experience Designer) and education (BFA from RISD). It’s also rooted in my own first-hand experience as an Art Docent in the schools my son has attended.
My son has been in two school districts during his K-5 years, both had a PTA sponsored, parent facilitated, Art Docent program. He really wanted me to be the docent for his class each year and while they just needed parents to follow an already established curriculum I thought it sounded like fun. It was a privilege to get to work with those kids once a month and see how each kid interpreted the featured art/artist and approached the hands-on part of the activity.
What was eye-opening and thought provoking to me was how often the kids would ask me “Am I doing it right?” when working on their own art projects.
We all agree that the STEM subjects are important in today’s world where high paying jobs are in fields that require a solid understanding of all these things. However each of these subjects have clear right answers and wrong answers, right ways and wrong ways, particularly in these early school years when kids’ minds are developing.
On top of that teachers are under pressure to have their students pass state assessments which are tied to school performance and funding. This results in “teaching to the test”, which is a whole other can of worms, so I’ll leave it at; however you feel about standardized testing any test will have right and wrong answers. From what I’ve seen kids do feel this pressure from an early age, they want to do well and to please their parents and teachers.
Art, visual art specifically, isn’t as easy to quantify, what’s good or bad, right or wrong, is defined by the eye and mind of the beholder. I think Music instruction survives in K-12 because it’s been correlated to developing parts of the mind that are also tied to language development and reading skills, but that’s a tangent. We’ve all heard some version of the stereotypical parent response to “I want to be an artist” of “how are you going to pay the bills with that?” Visions of The Starving Artist trope manifest in our minds. Art isn’t considered a viable career path, so why teach it in school? It’s seen as a waste of time and money.
What this line of thinking misses in my opinion, highly paid jobs in design fields aside, is how art in a K-12 curriculum gives kids critical skills they’ll need to get jobs at tech companies like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, etc… Tech companies aren’t just looking for employees who can write code and solve technical problems, they also want people who can innovate and find novel solutions. That requires a certain amount of flexible thinking and getting creative, an ability to fail and learn. Teaching young kids that there’s a right way and a wrong way to every problem creates people who are very concerned with doing things right with no internal compass that helps them navigate ambiguity.
What I saw when leading those Art Docent lessons were kids very concerned with doing the project right, and looking to me to answer them with “yes” or “no”. Instead I responded to those “Am I doing this right?” questions with “What do you think?” Art at these ages is low stakes in terms of GPA, so it gives kids the freedom to try things out. It gives them an outlet to experiment, fail, and learn in a formal environment. Even the kids who don’t feel they’re very artistic and might not draw or paint at home. I saw those kids do amazing things every time, even the kids who didn’t like the art they made. I’d give them pointers like “I really like the colors you chose here” or “I think it’s interesting how you drew that” and see them light up.
I think in our drive to quantify results in everything, to use metrics to prove success, we’re losing sight of the parts of ourselves, and our kids, that thrive on trying things out to see what happens. A part that doesn’t need the end product to be a provable success to be worthwhile. That sees it can fail and it’s ok because you learn things that will make the next attempt even better. I think art in the K-12 curriculum gives kids these lessons which will only help them no matter what career they choose later. That’s why I think adding art to STEM is so important.
