Dear Editor,

Prime Minister Andrew Holness’s emphasis on the importance of a STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) pedagogy and its subsequent applications is valid, but is unfortunately also misplaced. Consider the following illustrations of this, as posited generally by three notable figures.

The late US President Theodore Roosevelt was a fan of the character of a man, more so than the tools, equipment, and other possessions, whether tangible or intangible, that he might have had. This temperamental position led him to say, “To educate a man in mind and not morals is to educate a menace to society.” Adolf Hitler, the notorious leader of Nazi Germany and its army during World War II, led a regime that relentlessly pushed for the advancement in STEM, knowing well that it was perhaps his best chance of winning a war simultaneously being fought against many other nations, some being quite formidable militarily, like Russia, the US, and England.

The Nazi’s enslavement and unethical use of Jewish civilians as human guinea pigs in cruel and often lethal scientific experiments in attempts to quickly advance STEM applications followed suit.

In British musician Sting’s song, If I Ever Lose My Faith In You, he sings, “Never seen a miracle of science that didn’t go from a blessing to a curse.” The song contrasts the usually employed and touted solutions to our individual and collective problems to a softer one, which is having faith in one who is “loved’’. Prime Minister Holness, in praise of STEM, indicated that we must, as a nation, put less curricular resources in the ‘softer’ social sciences, like psychology, and presumably, theology. Suspiciously, the only faith Holness would want us to have is in him.

In Luke 10:38-42, Jesus indicated that even outside of the practicality and logic of things, there is a good part. In addition to character and faith, in our deliberations on STEM, we must view it primarily as a ‘language’, which, as any language does in facilitating communication and learning, opens up the path to knowledge and truth. Though similar to the ‘teaching a man how to fish rather than giving him a fish’ narrative, language also lends itself to ‘believing’, and it is better to believe, which is the good part, than to know whether it is in regards to STEM or not.

This is why the call to teach only arithmetic and English language at primary school level, to redirect learning focus to literacy and numeracy is a dangerous one. If children don’t get to identify with the diversity of intellectual and emotional material that they might be exposed to in life, they run the risk of getting caught up in the clockwork of things and not availing themselves of the good part.

Andre O Sheppy

astrangely@outlook.com