I voted for you, but if you ever find yourself running for real office, reconsider ideas like this:
As we are here at MIT, I am pledging myself to putting a greater focus on getting more kids intereste in science, technology, engineering and maths or STEM. It is you here and the future students at institutions like this that will create the next creative technological wonder.
Leaving aside for the moment that STEM is a really corny acronym and many scientists bristle at it, it's just a bad idea. There are, of course, students who are interested in science and engineering. This is a good thing, because the world needs scientists and engineers, but the Kool-Aid party that politicians and school administrators are pushing right now is not only unhelpful, it's damaging. We end up with a third or more of the seats in freshman science courses being filled with people who not only don't want to be there but who flunk out. Failure early on diminishes their chances of success, not only because of poor transcript grades but because of the psychological effects of failure early on. Also, because of funding cuts to state universities, seats are severely limited and it's first-come, first-served, with deserving and interested students left on waiting lists to make room for those pushed into "stem" fields by their high school counselors.
University science faculty are drafted into entertaining groups of high school students. They come in two varieties. One type of group is small. Their parents have paid 50 dollars or more for the privilege of working on a project with a real scientist at a university. Often this group consists of people of Indian or East Asian descent. This group represents students who are genuinely interested in science. They don't need anyone to invent silly acronyms and they don't need to be pressured into taking science courses. They spend a day or so at a summer Science Camp, where they build bridges, make electrical circuits, perform chemical reactions, analyze local water for lead or other heavy metals, perform genetics studies, or otherwise engage their scientific interests. They are competitive and university faculty generally find it pleasurable to work with them.
The other type of group is larger. It consists of entire classes of 11th- or 12th-grade students being corralled through the university's facilities. They are led by teachers looking to score points with their school principals. The principals are looking to score points with their school board members. The board members are looking to score points with the voters, who have been convinced by politicians that this is a good idea. These students are clearly very bored. Few of these are genuinely interested in science. They will miss a day of instruction for this field trip. School days are limited, and these students will learn nothing on this school day. They will be subjected to demonstrations and speeches. They will be encouraged to ask questions by the unfortunate university faculty members pressured to host them. They will not want to ask questions, but eventually questions will be extracted from them. They will be such enlightened questions as "How can you stand the smell?" or "Hey, can we use this stuff to get high?"
The polls have opened and it's time to send a message. We want and need a Senate that is focused on solving problems, not creating new ones.
Indeed.
I strongly discourage you from jumping aboard this "get students interested in stem" bandwagon. I know that it is politically and morally fashionable at the moment, but this philosophy is wasting resources and causing more problems than it solves, if it solves any. Should you find yourself in any real elected office in the future, recognize that not all new ideas are good ideas.
Best of luck,
angus
