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For middle school? Is this electives or the overall curriculum? Ratio seems an odd way to think if it.
Middle school is where real talents in a particular subject begin to emerge for more kids, so if we are talking about core classes all kids take you'd need a broad range of options so all students get the chance to really explore every path available to them. I wouldn't think of it in terms of a ratio, but instead how many courses do we need for a kid who has the potential to be an engineer (or a singer or an artist) in order to spark an interest? Maybe a robotics class, algebra, and a coding course along with the usual sciences is all your average middle school needs to find the future STEM leaders. Maybe having a chorus and a theater class or two catches the future broadway stars. Who knows? But I would say think in terms of what curriculum exposes kids to the broadest options as opposed to a formula.
I think that both STEM and arts/music should be available as electives in middle/high school. Middle/high school is a time when students should have a choice of electives. STEM and art/music are valid electives. I don't think there should be a strict ratio of one type of class vs the other but rather the available electives should be based on school population. I do not think academic electives should be limited to STEM and arts/music. I also think social science and literature electives should available.
My kid go to a private school and electives are available in all disciplines. Music, art, theater, english, social science, science, PE and math electives are available for middle and high school students. My three kids have take a wide variety of electives:
band
chorus
orchestra
poetry
world religions
comparative government
literary magazine
weightlifting
film as literature
constitutional law
business law
I think music and art should be optional or offered as electives, and STEM should be emphasized.
Yes, that is my opinion as well.
It's nice that we give a child the opportunity to explore acting because they might become the next broadway musical star. But they, in 99.99% probability, will not. More than likely, they'll work a job and draw upon skills and knowledge gained during classes other than what they got from the acting class.
Whereas, every student who is interested in engineering can go out and get hired as an engineer (assuming the student has the motivation and the smarts to graduate as an engineer). But STEM is more than just engineering, it is a lot of professions, both college graduate track as well as non-college graduate track. There's a ton of work in STEM fields and I see no signs of it stopping.
It seems a shame that, we as parents, in the interest of being "fair", insist on the same number of seats in artistic classes (where there is little employment opportunity) as in STEM classes (where there is abundant employment opportunity.)
I'm not trying to say that one is more important than another. I am simply recognizing that society places more value on certain careers and less value on other careers.
Difficult to answer with limited information. In middle school kids should have a broad basis of learning upon which to draw.
At least one of each the sciences required, math, proper english as well as vocabulary and literature, a foreign language, history and civics as well as geography, money handling and economics. Music, art, theater at 10% total (K-12)
I would save technology and engineering for high school lest the above get short shrift.
wouldnt english/language classes fall under the arts category already? they arent stem, and are liberal arts by definition. different teaching method but english isnt different than theater except for old language and fancy clothes, re-enactments happen in both settings. learning to speak spanish pretending to be in a cafe vs hamlet play. writing paper vs writing script uses same skills of research/idea communication/drawing audience
history would be another "arts" to me, or do you only count art as painting/drawing?
how much is the split between arts vs stem with current class selection? seems like with stem push, people expand what they want into stem while excluding things from the "arts" category to only include performance arts. even medicine would not strictly be "stem" though it encompasses the use of science and technology, wielding also use science/technology while not being stem
what was the original goal? do you want the school to be training centers? might as well make a curriculum for programming/wielding/nursing/musician and skip the smokescreen of calling it stem vs arts
I think it should generally be 50:50 in terms of the mandatory curriculum, but there should be electives that allow each kid to swing that ratio more towards either STEM or Arts depending on their personal skills.
It's nice that we give a child the opportunity to explore acting because they might become the next broadway musical star. But they, in 99.99% probability, will not. More than likely, they'll work a job and draw upon skills and knowledge gained during classes other than what they got from the acting class.
Whereas, every student who is interested in engineering can go out and get hired as an engineer (assuming the student has the motivation and the smarts to graduate as an engineer). But STEM is more than just engineering, it is a lot of professions, both college graduate track as well as non-college graduate track. There's a ton of work in STEM fields and I see no signs of it stopping.
It seems a shame that, we as parents, in the interest of being "fair", insist on the same number of seats in artistic classes (where there is little employment opportunity) as in STEM classes (where there is abundant employment opportunity.)
I'm not trying to say that one is more important than another. I am simply recognizing that society places more value on certain careers and less value on other careers.
Do you not see the link between art education and the type of conceptual thinking and design skills that produced a STEM giant like Steve Jobs (first inspired by his Art/calligraphy courses)... Are you not understanding the strong relationship between musical acumen, acoustic/vibration formula, pattern recognition, and mathematical genius? Many of the tech leaders in Silicon Valley don't even want their kids studying computers before 8th grade as they don't want it impairing the kids' intellectual development. I will post links when I have time.
STEM jobs are abundant but our grads are also competing against better STEM educated, cheaper HB1Visa workers. It is the creative mind that can set one apart from the herd, and music and arts education is particularly good at grooming those creative gifts.
Nowadays it's called STEAM, with the A standing for the arts. I think schools that value science, math, engineering, etc. to the exclusion of the arts are doing a disservice to their students. Heck, let's just get rid of all arts and PE while we're at it, because PE doesn't help you get a job.
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