The Student News Site of Neshaminy High School

The Playwickian

The Student News Site of Neshaminy High School

The Playwickian

The Student News Site of Neshaminy High School

The Playwickian

Schools should primarily focus on STEM

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) as a field is of the top importance and our current lack of focus on it is astonishing. The way of the future is STEM and if Neshaminy wants its students to succeed then there must be a larger focus on it. Not that there is no need for the arts, but there is rather a greater focus on STEM in the world today. The current outlook that Neshaminy holds for the field is lacking support and a shift towards the sciences would be a great start to enhance Neshaminy’s preparation for college and the real world.

The sciences greatly outweigh the arts in securing a job after graduation. Despite the fact that there are jobs in the arts and humanities, science is the expanding field. History may be written every day, but science is bursting further and further outwards daily. The last century of science has been discovery, the next is creation, and there is a severe need for students and workers in that field.
The current core curriculum brushes aside STEM as a field, requiring four years of English and History whilst only requiring three of Mathematics and Science. This unjust and unfounded discrepancy is simply illogical. Both the ideas of all subjects requiring four years and of all subjects requiring three have merit, but splitting the arts and STEM along a divide is wrong. Were the curriculum to require four years each, the student would receive a well-rounded education, and were it to require three it would allow seniors to specialize more in their fields for after graduation.

The current split method is only depriving students, whether it be depriving artistic students from an analytical mindset or depriving STEM students from a more open schedule.

Common defense for history is that ‘Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.’ While this may hold true for the history book, it has infiltrated the STEM rooms unjustly and hurt the teacher and student alike. Current equipment is old, inexact, and often damaged. While I fully support the purchase of new copies of George Orwell’s “1984,” I also find the lack of attention to STEM equipment appalling. Whilst every student takes home numerous English or History books, many students huddle around one force gauge or share one spectrometer. Damaged or poorly calibrated equipment is just as common, so that one spectrometer is showing the wrong information for all four students using it.

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The benefits of a revamped STEM program far outweighs the cost, both towards the benefit of the student and the ability of the teacher. An engaging approach from the school district would help increase this benefit, and would help the general problems that the field has in its core curriculum position. This engagement to the Neshaminy student would only increase his or her quality of education and prospects for the future.

By no means would this ruin the Arts and Humanities’ in a Neshaminy education, but perhaps it would be the first step toward loosening its stranglehold.

The dissent represents the minority view of the Editorial Board.

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Schools should primarily focus on STEM