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This was from Brian Meyer
I really enjoyed the introduction to the "Culturally Situated Design Tools" paper for this month. In particular, I appreciated the critique of the "pipeline" model/discourse in STEM. The paper reads:
The “pipeline” model of STEM education conceives of underrepresentation by race, gender and class in terms of leaks that fail to deliver students to their destination in the science and technology workforce. But that model fails to consider the role of STEM in producing underrepresentation.
These issues can only be solved by moving from the extractive approach of the pipeline model to a generative model, one in which the value produced by STEM students can cycle back their own communities.
For me, this (and other) parts of the paper highlight the need to acknowledge the destructive and inhumane ways that STEM is used in the world and to imagine a STEM education that seeks to create a more humane world as a central premise.
After reading, I was reflecting on one of the focus questions for the month:
The “pipeline” model for STEM diversity is at best like oil production, taking kids out of their low-income communities for use elsewhere. What alternative models might be available?
One thing that seemed missing for me was an analysis of how this STEM "pipeline" functions in the broader context of the the societal status quo. It asks of marginalized students to "play the game" (go through the pipeline) in order to participate in a society that doesn't have their interests at heart. As the paper suggests, one potential way of re-imaging the work in STEM is to get rid of this delay to activism. Rather than asking students to make it through the pipeline before they can arrive at a place where they can enact change, create the opportunities for students to enact change now! That would require the work to be centered on the current - questions students have about the world, the injustices they see in our communities and world, other pressing issues of our time.
If not the pipeline, then what other metaphor? In keeping with the environmental theme, perhaps we need a metaphor of "Planting Seeds" for life/change/new possibilities?
Of course, this raises a host of challenging questions:
- What policy issues would support such an agenda?
- What structural changes need to take place?
- What curricular supports would allow teachers to engage students in meaningful STEM experiences while still being responsive to the issues and questions of their community?
What stood out for others? |
