Getting kids excited about science ? Science and Atheism

I have been in STEM related jobs for about 15 years, but I had the luxury of growing up in Silicon Valley where it was cool to be computer literate and knowing your maths and science were a way to make the big money like the corporate giants that sprang up in the garages around the area. But I battled through the boring science, maths, and technology classes that I had to do in school. High school turned me off of STEM subjects and I entered junior college looking at the arts and philosophy as areas of interest as the teachers that really inspired me in high schools were my theatre and choir teachers (btw Mr. Williamson and Mrs. Fujikawa were awesome!). ?I graduated from high school at 16 and it took me 5 years to shake off the horror that I felt studying STEM before I could get back into the areas that now define a large part of my life.

Now the UK government is looking at introducing a new set of STEM guidelines for kids that educators are balking at. The idea that we need kids to study STEM to fill market needs is going to backfire. What we need are kids that want to play with computers, build robots, and program computers because that is what will fire up the next generation of geeks and techies. My junior high school programming classes that taught me how to make an address turned me away from computers and technology and it was the programming that I did for fun and the games I was playing that kept my hand into it.

We need teachers that can make these subjects fun, we need people in the schools that can not only educate but empower and embolden the youth to step up and become the next generation of hackers and scientists. ? We don?t need people who can just fix a computer but ones that are happy sitting with a PC in pieces looking for what the problem is. ?People that look at troubleshooting as an art and entertainment not just a vector to a?pay cheque.

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Tags: education, Kids, STEM

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