GW Thielman, in an article at The Federalist helpfully titled The Liberal Arts Are Dead, Long Live STEM, makes the point that what goes for a Liberal Arts education today has become incredibly illiberal. STEM, of course, being the acronym for fields in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. He believes the focus of “liberal arts” education these days is more about the politically correct zeitgeist of the day than the preparation of students to think critically. He gives a great explanation of this point I have tried to make frequently on this blog.
STEM curricula have been critiqued for supposedly neglecting the humanities, but students who major in STEM obtain more credit hours in languages, arts, and human interaction than their humanities counterparts obtain in scientific fields. Rhodes College professor Loretta Jackson-Hayes has explained the benefit of liberal arts for STEM students, but liberal-arts students could likewise benefit from cross-training in the more exacting disciplines.
Students who pursue STEM majors are also better at the humanities than liberal-arts majors are at the sciences. Harvard law professor Harvey Mansfield in The New Atlantis observed, “Science students do well in non-science courses, but non-science students have difficulty in science courses. Slaves of exactness find it easier to adjust to the inexact, though they may be disdainful of it, than those who think in the realm of the inexact when confronted with the exact.” Perhaps envy subtly contributes to liberal arts defensiveness against STEM.
This is precisely why our children earned STEM undergraduate degrees. One went on to graduate work in STEM, but the other was accepted for a PhD at a great school in a non-STEM field specifically because she had an undergraduate degree in a STEM field. Theilman goes into this in detail with some excellent supporting links.
Right after I read his article, I ran into another article by Stanley Kurtz in National Review titled How the College Board Politicized U.S. History. I believe it is about precisely the same problem. The article discusses how the College Board, the company that makes standardized examinations like CLEP, the SAT and high school AP tests is degrading their AP materials by politicizing in a disturbingly politically correct, left-wing way. He is not the only one. You can read more about a group of highly credentialed historians made a statement denouncing this revisionism in this article at Real Clear Politics titled College Board’s Reckless Spin on U.S. History.
This is precisely why we are so grateful we homeschooled our children and sent them on to do STEM degrees and why I continue to push back on this kind of revisionism whenever I get the chance.
Betty Blonde #338 – 11/02/2009
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