STEM is only part of a plant

It needs roots, leaves, and flowers.

STEM refers to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.  It is all the rage to ensure that a large number of public school students be grounded in STEM.  That’s “where all the jobs are.” 

But is that all our public schools should produce: “skills” that are “hot” today for large corporations?  What happens when large corporations want different “skills”?  How many FORTRAN or COBOL programmers are still working?  How many large corporations were willing to let them learn C on the job?  Or would the large corporations rather let them go and hire C programmers taught by a university?  Programmers who would be cheaper because they didn’t have seniority.  Or programmers who would be cheaper because they were H1-B hires?  The old programmers would be familiar with how the company functioned.  The new programmers would probably take longer to learn how the company functioned than the old programmers could upgrade their “skills”.

Tech innovation in and of itself is devoid of meaning.  We need the humanities and art to give meaning.  The humanities are the roots of a learning plant.  They feed the STEM with ideas of what has worked in the past and insight to what might work in the future.  The arts are the flowers of the STEM.  Without music, drawing, and theatre, STEM is only more and more gadgets which became ends in of themselves.  See Sherry Turkles’ “Alone Together” for how much are society has become tools of our gadgets rather than our gadgets being our tools.  The leaves are the parts that extract learning from whatever sources are available.

Even before STEM became a buzz-word, I had plenty of STEM training.

I had the science of Physics and Chemistry in high school and college.  I really haven’t used much Physics or Chemistry since then.  I do remember that speed equals the acceleration multiplied by the square of time.  I don’t know what use this has been to me except that I don’t think sky diving is a good idea.  I do remember that water is two-parts hydrogen and one part oxygen and the carbon dioxide is one part carbon and two parts oxygen.

In college I took the technology of AC Circuits and flunked it.   But all I really need to know today is that the wall sockets are AC circuits that when properly used can provide light as well as power for the computer I am typing this article on.

Oops, an aside.  From English I learned the last phrase should be “for the computer on which I am typing this article.”  And of course, from other reading I have learned that this is a forced construction based on the idea that English should follow Latin grammar.

In college I had “Engineering Tools and Processes”.  I don’t remember my grade (not an A), but as all the others did, my brazing of one piece to another exceeded the base line.  On the other hand, I never did get the hang of arc welding.  I always got the rod stuck to the work.

Now Math is something I really got immersed in: calculus, differential equations, complex variables, mathematical logic, and more: two years at a liberal arts college and two years in graduate schools.  But what do I use math for now: balancing my checkbook, doing my taxes, and guessing an appropriate tip.  I do remember that the squares of the sides of a right triangle equal the square of the hypotenuse.  But might I have learned this just doing some carpentry?  The 3-4-5 rule for making a right angle.  About the only other formula I remember is the integral of e to the x equals a function of u sub n.  I didn’t learn that in the class room!

With all that STEM, how did I learn so much about computers?  On the job training and my own curiosity.  I got a summer job between my junior and senior years to learn computing.  With a text book from the company library and the help of others, I successfully completed a program that was used after I left.

When I went to graduate school as a graduate assistant, we were given some manuals and pointed at the computer room.  It was the days of cards-in, cards-out but it was self-serve.  None of this priesthood behind locked doors that gave back your work when they damn-well decided to.

Now computers have gotten both easier to use and harder to use.  But how many of those who get the full STEM treatment will get and hold jobs in industry.  Will a programmer be able to easily change jobs if he or she doesn’t have the right “skill set”?  Or will companies look for new grads from other countries on H1-B visas.  And after the visas expire just send them back home because the companies can get new grads with “up-to-date” “skill sets”.

This all reminds me of Kurt Vonnegut’s “Player Piano”.  Workers were spit out of the system because their jobs were replaced by computer systems.  Even managers were getting spit out.  Vonnegut saw this back in the bad-old-days of cards-in, cards-out.

But what I really learned in school and on my own that was of lasting importance was in the roots, flowers, and leaves.  What would my life be without all the literature I learned?  Would I have enjoyed and learned from Shakespeare and other great books without being exposed to them in school?  Would I have learned about government without civics and American history?  Would I have enjoyed a wide range of music without a class in music appreciation.  It is all of these that allowed me to enjoy life and contribute more than sitting in a cubicle designing “the next great thing.”

Also in the Reader Weekly of Duluth on 2016-03-24 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2016/03/24/6930_stem_is_only_part_of_a_plant-1.

Also "complex various" was corrected to "complex variables".

Memorable Shakespeare

A comic’s picture appears every week in the Budgeteer.  He has a silly hat and a silly expression.  How does such a comic turn into evil incarnate?  Brian Matuszak did it brilliantly in the Wise Fool Shakespeare production of Macbeth.

Matuszak portrayed Macbeth as moving from a loyal officer of the king to a wavering assassin to an indiscriminate killer, always torn between ambition and distrust of all who might stand in his way.  Given that the costumes were of 1930s Chicago, I found it easy to compare Matuszak’s Macbeth to an ambitious but incompetent CEO.  Rather than look at his own mismanagement he fires anyone who proposes contrary suggestions.

I was almost ready to walk out after the first act because the manic actions of Matuszak as Macbeth were almost unbearable.  Fortunately, I knew the outcome and stayed to be mesmerized by the slow but inevitable approach of Macbeth’s doom.  Matuszak brilliantly showed Macbeth’s rising fears with much pacing, quavering hands, and doubting “inner” voices.

I have been mesmerized by Shakespeare’s plays since at least the ninth grade in the Cleveland Public Schools.  I think we read “As You Like It” in the ninth grade.  I know we read “Julius Caesar” in the tenth grade and both “Macbeth” and “Hamlet” in the twelfth grade.  I had the same English teacher, Miss Palmer, for the last three plays.

I hated the memorization parts but I liked the reading approach.  We first read an act a day as homework and then reread the play a few scenes at a time.  We would also read passages aloud in class.

I’ll never forget the Hi BA’er (High School Born Again’er) who refused to read Lady Macbeth’s “Out, damned spot!”  I don’t know why it didn’t bother him to read the words of a murderer but it did to read that one curse word!  Miss Palmer had to recite those words so he would continue.

About fifty years ago I ordered the Yale University collection of Shakespeare from the Book of the Month Club.  When I received it, I discovered that the cover of the Sonnets was upside down.  Or was the text upside down?  I sent that book back with a sonnet.  I got a “proper” copy back but no acknowledgment of my writing “skill” and I didn’t keep a copy of my sonnet.

I have yet to read all the plays, but every so often I pick out one from the long faded row and read one I haven’t read before or reread one.

Where has the space gone?  I got so carried away with the above that I’ve used up half my space already.  I’ll have to dash through some of my other Shakespeare experiences.

I’m sure I’ve seen several stage productions of Shakespeare’s plays, but a few stand out.  We saw “The Tempest” at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis and more.  We had season tickets and the Guthrie generally did one Shakespeare play every season.

One of the most interesting settings was “Much Ado about Nothing” on the shore of Lake Harriet in Minneapolis.  The actors had to contend with the jets flying overhead.

The movie versions have stuck better in my memory.

One of the first is Roman Polanski’s “Macbeth”, which was financed by Playboy.  I’ll let you look for more of the details in Wikipedia.  Besides the nudity and violence, the scene that I remember best is Macbeth placing his feet in the deep-set footprints in a coronation stone.

I remember three movie versions of “Hamlet”, Laurence Olivier, 1948, Mel Gibson, 1990, and Kenneth Branagh, 1996.  The difference that struck me was that Olivier was declaiming on stage and Gibson and Branagh were acting in elaborate movie sets.  (Matuszak was acting on a very plain stage.)

Franco Zefferelli directed a very good version of “Romeo and Juliet” in 1968.

I remember seeing a black and white version of “Merchant of Venice”, but I don’t remember when or by whom.  While looking up “Merchant of Venice”, I did find a Wikipedia entry for Lois Weber, an actress, screenwriter, producer, and director.  Reading that entry was a fascinating diversion.

When the Plaza Mr. Movies closed, I bought a copy of Kenneth Branagh’s “As You Like It”.  Bryce Dallas Howard plays a very perky and likable Rosalind.  Her delivery of “I will marry no woman” has really stuck in my mind.  I should watch it again one of these years.

How many operas have been based on Shakespeare?  “Othello”, “Macbeth”, “Falstaff”, “Romeo and Juliet”, “Merry Wives of Windsor”, “Antony and Cleopatra”, and on and on.  They have been in English, Italian, French, Russian, German, and probably more.

Then there are the spinoffs on stage and film.

“Kiss me, Kate” is a play within a play; the actors playing out the story of “The Taming of the Shrew” on stage and in “real” life.

Leonard Bernstein’s “West Side Story” is a retelling of “Romeo and Juliet”.  At least in this version “Juliet” walked off after the death of “Romeo” rather than kill herself.

Akira Kurusawa’s “Ran” is a retelling of “King Lear” in a Japanese setting.  It is a good telling of good intentions going very badly.

“All the world is a stage” and Shakespeare appears in all the world!

This was also printed in the Reader Weekly, 2014-03-20 at
http://duluthreader.com/articles/2014/03/20/3096_memorable_shakespeare