The reasons we feel STEM philosophy is an effective approach in education

In the 21st century, we feel more and more intensively that STEM approach cannot be overrated. More and more educators are convinced that interdisciplinarity and STEM or STEAM education will play a key role in preparing our young generations for the future.

What is STEM philosophy about? Basically, it is the concept that science, technology, engineering, mathematics (and also art in STEAM philosophy) can and should be intertwined and taught altogether in overall contexts and with tight connections to real life problems and to real life situations.

Why is it such a meaningful and effective approach in education? It has been shown to enable learning by making connections between ideas and concepts across borders between multiple disciplines. In this way, students learn to apply the knowledge gained in one discipline to another discipline, thus strengthening their learning process.

The Canadian non-profit organization ASCD, which represents more than 114,000 educators from more than 127 countries, cites the following reasons as the main reasons of importance of interdisciplinarity:

• An exponential increase in our level of knowledge, which means that when planning an educational curriculum, it is increasingly necessary to decide which areas of study will be eliminated and which will be preferred. At the same time, we are still witnessing that new knowledge is being formed at the intersection of disciplines, and not as it once was within one theoretical discipline.

• Fragmentation of school schedules, which cause students to alternate between 8 different subjects during each school day, always with a different teacher and often with different classmates, which means that each teacher has an average of 40-45 minutes to spend with students only to its specific topic.

• The questionable degree of relevance of the study for real life needs, which can be demonstrated by a simple comparison of problem solving within the school day with real problem solving in real life. Only within the school we solve 45 minutes of mathematical problems, another 45 minutes are devoted to improving language skills and then we spend another 45 minutes studying biology, etc. Outside the school environment, we solve complex problems comprehensively, even without the need to assign them to a specific field.

• Society's response to the fragmentation that can be observed in almost all higher education institutions. The faculties of medicine also provide philosophy courses for students, as future physicians should be educated not only in physiology and anatomy. Likewise, faculties of economics offer ethics courses, pedagogical faculties offer business correspondence courses, and so on, as it is a generally accepted fact that a shift to an interdisciplinary approach will help students better integrate their studies with the needs of their future practice. (Heidi Hayes Jacobs 1989: 15)

In recent years, we have increasingly witnessed that we will not be able to address the challenges of our advanced modern society, such as the environment, energy resources, infrastructure or security, in the framework of traditional scientific research. These challenges are interdisciplinary in nature and will require an interdisciplinary innovative approach. Numerous interdisciplinary cooperation initiatives have been emerging in scientific circles for several decades and have become a new standard in the world of research.

      The general basis of this new interdisciplinary paradigm is the fact that the natural and technical sciences cannot provide answers to all key questions. They are not enough to address challenges such as the climate crisis or the financial crisis, because they also need insights, approaches and methods from psychology, culturology, economics and other social sciences.

Being aware of these facts, our project tries to join these interdisciplinary attempts and make a contribution. Our goals are to enhance the students´abilities:

·         to appreciate the evidence of experts

·         to tolerate ambiguity and complexity

·         to be sensitive to ethical concepts and professional, political or religious prejudices

·         to think and analyse resources creatively and critically

·         to listen carefully and with humility

·         to analyse problems from different perspectives, including those associated with specific disciplines

·         to look for common and contrasting elements

·         to put problems and their solutions into a broader context

·         to make critical arguments

·         to sympathize with multiple perspectives.