Orienting STEM Toward the Common Good: A Future Chemistry Teacher’s Perspective

By Anonymous / Summer 2020

I want to be a teacher of chemistry and environmental sciences, but not because I loved school, I loathed school. It was tedious and keeping me away from building my tree houses, playing with friends, video games, exploring nature, and other passions. It was teaching me how to sit quietly, obey instructions, and regurgitate information tenuous to my priorities. Whenever possible, as a student I would sit in class in a kind of stasis – participating just enough to avoid suspicion and make it to the next period with minimal teacher interaction. I was enrolled in five different schools both private and public institutions. All the schools I attended functioned in the same way and worked to accomplish similar goals. The memorization of facts, procedures, and discipline. For example, at El Cajon Seventh-Day Adventist Christian School it was memorizing bible passages while at Granite Hills High School it was memorizing the equations for a line, the area formulas of shapes, and important dates of U.S. history. You might be thinking I am here to criticize the wisdom that may be in scripture and the utility of mathematical equations but that is far from my purpose. It is the effect of this education on my spirit and mind that I hope to illuminate.

At this time, I think it would be helpful if I share an experience that exemplifies what education can be. I have spent a lot of time camping in the Anza Borrego desert outside of San Diego. A desert is a place that is close to my heart. Some people criticize it for its inhospitable reputation: The bleakness and its heat are at the top of such a list. But if you visit at the right time of the year, even a desert-like Death Valley can be an enjoyable and even a valuable experience. In my experience, spending time in the desert provides perspective. I believe its vastness forces you to take inventory of what truly matters. What do you have with you? What have you left behind? These are the types of questions you are forced to consider in such a place. A night spent in the desert rivals any planetarium open to the public. While looking up at a sky undisturbed by the lights of human activity the world opens to you. The vastness tells you that you are small, that you are here on earth with everything that has lived or is living. It fostered a sense in me that the earth and all the life on it have value. The time spent in the desert has inspired me to learn how to take care of the earth: its environment and my fellow lifeforms.

Why did I have to go into the wild to find that realization? As an environmental chemistry major, I have many classes focused on the physical and biological world but the dessert lesson was never achieved there. In the STEM field, I think it is because our current education model prioritizes the wrong things, encourages the wrong values, and fails to teach students how the content should be used for the betterment of the students, their communities, or the environment.

Stem education is lacking in a curriculum that is student-centered or geared towards giving them the tools to deal with real-world problems. Standardization; the no child left behind act and the implementation of common core education barred educators and students from curriculums that related to local issues and handicapped STEM education's ability to adapt to pressing societal issues. Touted as a way to level the playing field, it affects all student communities. But the curriculum is biased and places measurable disadvantages on low socioeconomic or communities with cultures that are not white and middle class.

I often hear my Chemistry professors mention how companies respect UCSD graduates for their wealth of theory but criticize them for lacking in teamwork and application. Both of which are the symptoms of an education that sorts students by the length of their transcripts, GPA, and test scores. Currently, STEM education is not transferring the power of these fields’ knowledge with the curriculum's learning goals. Teachers are pressured to assess students' progress through evaluations that praise rote memorization and regurgitation. In my experience STEM classes can seem a mile wide and an inch deep. Quickly moving from one topic to the other without exploring what it means to society or how the students are empowered by the concepts. This is alarming to me because the issues we are facing today and in the future require militant, precise, creative, and passionate usages of science. Considering the political and economic forces resistant to the necessary changes, a deeper, more student-centered STEM education that teaches the utility of the field is the best way I see to give students the ability to untangle the immense complexity of the climate crisis, pandemics, and resource management.

Before we discuss possible solutions for a better educational institution, it may be helpful to look at the deeper story behind the problem. I think asking where this model of education comes from is needed is helpful when discussing why it exists today.

Near the end of the 1800s, the government had been sufficiently infiltrated by business interests to usher in unprecedented wealth for a few CEOs in industries such as the railroad, oil, and even telephone. The government bought by the wealth of industry accumulated from years of cheap labor and slavery fought to preserve the profits with only 19 out of 288 supreme court cases related to the 14th amendment debating black rights and instead focusing on corporations receiving the rights of white citizens (Zinn). They were protected from regulations: allowing them to exploit workers and gain huge profits in government-sanctioned monopolies, business deals, and investment schemes earning them the title of Robber Barons. To stave off the cries of revolution, the schools, churches, and popular literature perpetuated a myth that being poor and exploited was a sign of personal failure and lack of effect (Zinn). The worlds of business, politics, and education were becoming meshed together, working in concert to keep a population filled with the cause for rebellion pacified with a most sinister scapegoat, to blame the inadequacies of life solely on the individual and not of the system. By indoctrinating students into this ideology, requiring the memorization of facts and beliefs that benefit the Robber Barons cause, the system was allowed to continue and flourish. Education became a force for the conservation of industries and corporations, a machine that sorted people into jobs that ensured the status quo was undisturbed, and that the consolidation of wealth for the ruling class continued undisturbed. This factory-like system of education was bought by the corporations to teach obedience and ensure rebellion could never achieve enough support to trigger meaningful change.

Today our educational system mirrors many of the characteristics of the past as corporate America beat back any democratizing waves after the 1800s. Inequality in our society comes from the extreme wealth of the 1% The power wealth affords the top earners security and litigation in their favor. Class mobility has largely collapsed and the middle class continues to be exploited and taxed disproportionately. To avoid any meaningful change to the status quo, the notion of class has largely been wiped out of people minds, caring from others as been driven from people's minds, criticism of the state had been labeled unpatriotic, and “consumerism makes our youth walk in malls instead of libraries” (Hutchison)

Education shouts the consumerism ideology, students are taught to not follow their passions or the needs of their community and instead focus on receiving a degree with the highest earning potential. The solidarity of our struggling middle class is kept broken by taxes and the dismantling of social safety nets. We are still taught that failure is the cause of solely the individual and that we must trample over others to secure what is rightfully ours.

A social mobility system based on individuals' ability to buy into higher classes favors those who are privileged and shackles those who are disadvantaged. Schools play an important role in economic and social reproduction that tends to serve the interest of the dominant classes of both wealth and power (Nieto). We have communities of color, segregated to poorly zoned and polluted cities with schools that more closely resemble a prison when compared to the elite schools of the suburbs. Assessments of intelligence that favor those who can pay for the coaches, tutors, and have school districts provide advanced classes in math, science, and arts. They can purchase the social and cultural capital necessary to reach an American Dream. However, the poor and exploited communities are blamed for their inability to advance. The elite who are raised in wealthier households are raised in wealthier schools. They are given more physical and emotional freedom as well as being “challenged” more. They are effectively conditioned to fill the upper management and professional roles society has to offer. On the other hand, poor schools are characterized by controlling mechanisms such as bells, gates, metal detectors, and an education that teaches the basics and rote memorization. The poor schools provide the bodies for war and our uneducated workforce. I have heard that there is a culture of poverty, the welfare queens, and the uninspired and lazy that creates these discrepancies, but the truth is the differences are the wounds of a part of society most damaged by history's subjugation in forms of slavery and segregation in forms of prison and redlining.

Still, both privileged and disadvantaged students suffer. As we mentioned earlier, the standardization of schools is misusing the time, energy, and passions of our students. Education has become something like a shopping spree. Students are pressured to finish and collect more and more accolades, more advanced classes, more standardized tests, and more international exams like AP. I think this is a way to condition students to work tirelessly, like a robot. All this pressure turns them into little professionals. Success often depends on memorization of facts, going along with authority, instead of critical thinking skills so when American kids encounter questions on tests outside of the system that does not rely on rote memorization, they fall apart (Abeles). They are conditioned to fit seamlessly into the machinery of corporate-run America with the knowledge to do demanding tasks but not the wisdom to make meaningful changes to issues of injustice but also does not provide students the tools to grapple with and solve real problems.STEM education and industry has been complicit in the problem. The sudden educational shift from public to a privately-funded educational institution resulted in thousands of years of western development of education in cultural arts, and the human being abandoned as education became obsessed with the earning potential of graduates and their potential as an economic machine (Brown.) As schools began to focus on securing funding from private and military industries instead of state funding, the resources of universities were diverted to building industry-like facilities and research departments. Instead of hiring professors who were trained to provide an education that would be critical of injustices and teach students to grapple with the problems of today,  professors who could produce the desired industry advancements were brought in. Because STEM education has turned into another branch of private and military industry the students taught within those students are conditioned to fit into the roles of those industries. 

How we can break free from the mechanical, transactional model of education that relies on rote memorization? During the ’60s the U.S saw underwent an expansion of higher education as public universities received an abundance of federal and state funding. This is also the time of the civil rights movement and the opening of the educational door to many previously denied groups of people. A coalition of the subjugated people in colored communities and university students was demanded much before the movement was defeated. I think it would be helpful to look back at the time for a possible road map or inspiration for one. At UCSD, a black and Latino coalition demanded an oppressive system be changed through the inclusions of students and minorities in governing bodies of universities and demanded an education that was critical of American history, economic systems, and a secret can technology curriculum that was geared to addressing human needs (Lumuumba-Zapata.) The lack of diversity in leadership and the refusal to acknowledge it in the curriculum was hindering the STEM field’s ability to address the worst problems of society. How could we address pollution quickly if we do not allow those most affected to be part of the conversation and dialog? How could we address issues of public health if we do not hear from the communities most targeted by the lack of quality and fresh food or places to exercise outdoors?

The Port Huron Statement lamented deafness and stagnation of the curriculum. “Our professors and administrators sacrifice controversy to public relations; their curriculums change more slowly than the living events of the world: their skills purchased by investors...passion is called unscholastic.” (Students for a Democratic Society, p. 175.) Being aware of the problem brought urgency to the minds of the students. Education needed to be something that empowered them immediately. They wanted the skills needed to address the most pressing problems and injustices of their time. They spoke up against an education that shackled and tethered them to an economic machine and existing social structure for one that was more free and adaptable, that could be a tool used to shape the issues they see around them. Universities must transition back to serving the community and their student bodies instead of the interests of private investors and the military. How will we educate students to fight climate change if the schools are bought by coal and oil industries? How will we educate students to fight for a cure for aids if the medical schools and departments are financed by industries interested in management medication instead of cures?

Proponents of meaningful change to STEM education may say that it is impossible, that rigor will be lost, American students will fall further behind the rest of the world in STEM topics. But what these students and I are describing is not impossible. Eric (Rico) Gutstein taught a middle-school mathematics classroom in a Chicago public school serving a Latino/a community. He guided his students through a “real-world” mathematics project to investigate racism and other injustices within their community using mathematics as a lens into the complexity of the issues. His students used mathematics to investigate the effects of gentrification on their neighborhood if the adjacent downtown area was developed. They were engaged in core mathematical concepts while simultaneously defending their communities by becoming politically active and attending their city council meetings and reading speeches. This kind of teaching style promotes interacting with their community and empowering students’ voices. Furthermore, all of his students graduated eighth grade and gained an average of one year on their ITBS test; and 15 of the 19 who tested for magnet high schools were accepted (Gutstein). An education designed to address the problems of society can excel at allowing students to reach their learning goals.

Rico’s story is why I believe STEM teachers can educate students in a way that is more fulfilling and connected to issues that influence the student’s lives. In STEM fields there is a cult of neutrality by the observer. The results of an experiment are left to defend themselves against the community. It is frowned upon to put emotion or your personality into your work as these things cannot be reproduced by the community. So teaching style that asks us to take a stand against injustices may be new and daunting to many of us. We are morally obligated to give them the tools to better the broken world they inherited. Our students' futures require more than just facts to lead to a productive, democratic, and free life. We have to connect our fields to their worlds and uplift them as citizens in a democratic society.

Works Cited

Abeles, Vicki, Jessica Congdon, Maimone Attia, Sophia Constantinou, and Mark Adler. Race to Nowhere. CA: Reel Link Films, 2011.

Brown, Wendy “Wendy Brown on Education” YouTube, New Economic Thinking, Jun 6, 2016.

Gustein, Eric. “"And that's just how it starts": Teaching Mathematics and Developing Student Agency.” Teachers College Record Volume 109, Number 2, February 2007, pp. 420–448 

Hutchison, Peter, Kelly Nyks, Jared P. Scott, Noam Chomsky, Malcolm Francis, Michael McSweeney, C A. Canant, and Rob Featherstone. Requiem for the American Dream. , 2016.

Lumumba-Zapata College “B.S.C.-M.A.Y.A. Demands for the Third College, U.C.S.D.” Received by UCSD, University of San Diego: California, 14 Mar. 1969, San Diego, California.

Nieto, Sonia. “Chapter 7: Toward an understanding of Schoo Achievement.” Affirming Diversity: The sociopolitical Context of Multicultural Education. 2000. Pp 231 -273.

Students for a Democratic Society “Introduction: Agenda For a Generation” The Port Huron Statement 1962. Pp. 173-182

Zinn, Howard “Chapter 11: Robber Barons and Rebels.” A people’s History of the United States. Harper Collins, 2003. pp. 253-296.