Experience as the Great Equalizer: The Future of STEM Education

Justin Luttrell, Ed.D, Director of STEM and Blended Learning, Pulaski County Special School District

Recently, a team of dedicated leaders and educators from my district attended a national conference. At that conference, leaders from our Learning Services division attended a session presented by a large, urban school district on closing opportunity gaps. The greatest gain from the session, however, did not come from any words spoken by the presenters. Rather, our greatest takeaway came when a member of the presentation team handed out pens and paper to our table.

The pens were your typical black ink pens containing a school logo. As the session progressed, I found myself trying multiple times to find the cam (thrush device) to extract the ballpoint to no avail. Embarrassed that I could not get the ballpoint to extract, I eventually looked over at my colleagues. When our eyes met, the three of us simultaneously acknowledged our same plight. We laughed nervously and then began to study the pen diligently. Collectively, the three of us hold doctorates in our fields with over 70 years of work experience. And yet, none of us could figure out how to get these seemingly, ordinary ballpoint pens to work. We pushed down. We twisted the cap. We twisted the nib. We twisted the barrel. Nothing worked. Finally, one of us pushed the clip upward, and “Voila!”

We snickered to ourselves that we faced such a struggle to accomplish what should have been a rather easy and mundane task. Each of us had education on our side, or so we thought. But, despite our educational backgrounds and accomplishments, the element that predominated our success all came down to one factor- our experiences.

You see, each of us had brought our experiences of how ballpoint pens should be extracted to the table (literally). Our experiences had taught us that caps, nibs, and barrels could be pushed down or twisted. But, our experiences had never taught us to push up. Thus, our experiences became a barrier to success in the Great Pen Plight of 2022.

In this same way our experiences outweighed all other factors in extracting the ballpoint of the pen, so our experiences (or lack thereof) can ultimately block or deny us success in the real world. This is no more evident than in my work to advance STEM education. For everything STEM education can do for students, it, in and of itself, is no substitute for authentic STEM experiences.

Horace Mann famously declared that education was the “great equalizer of the conditions of men.” And this is true — so long as that education grants its students the authentic experiences required to elevate them to the same playing field as those around them. I do not believe that anyone would argue the institutions of education in our nation have been equal for all populations at all times. History opposes this notion time and time again. However, Mann was on to something. There is a great equalizer for STEM education, and it is the opportunity of experiences. When we experience events and phenomena outside our circle of influences (or culture of influences), we broaden our understanding of the world around us.

“For everything, STEM education can do for students, it, in and of itself, is no substitute for authentic STEM experiences”

Think back to the Great Pen Plight of 2022. If at any time in our lives and education, just one of us had ever experienced extracting a ballpoint pen by pushing the clip or cap upward, our plight would have never existed. It would have been a non-issue. However, because we had never experienced such in all our years on this earth, we struggled needlessly.

Such is STEM education. For many students, the very thought of going into a STEM field (as a learner or as a worker) is a barrier. And our culture’s new found focus on a systemic process of knowledge acquisition in STEM areas is not enough. Inversely, it can often be a turn-off to the field altogether. In a 2019 study by the Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, less than 1 in 5 workers in STEM fields were black or Hispanic. According to the US Census Bureau, white men make up 52% of the overall workforce in America, yet they represent 73% of the overall workforce in STEM fields. This data matters because experiences matter.

Who can determine what potential innovations our world has missed out on because someone’s lack of opportunity for experiences prevented them from sitting at the table with everyone else? This is why I am proud of the work my district has done to provide our students from kindergarten to high school with an array of opportunities for authentic experiences with STEM.

Our STEM is LIT! initiative in elementary schools engages students in children's stories that integrate STEM challenges each month. In addition, we provide STEM book clubs for our 4th-grade students each year where our district office personnel, including our Superintendent and Deputy Superintendent, travel around to each school to engage in a STEM experience with our students based on the highlighted book. Last year, we created ice cream in a bag. This year, we also added STEMusic concerts at every elementary school to our growing list of student experiences. From Project Lead the Way to Robotics, from Academies and partnerships with local industries to create authentic environments for our students to thrive, our district actively and continuously seeks to create these experiences for ALL students - not simply to add to a calendar to look busy but to give our students the best chance at an equal playing field when they leave our campuses.

If we really want to equalize STEM for all students, regardless of backgrounds, ethnicities, languages, and socio-economic statuses, we cannot simply lecture our students into the future of STEM. I would dare argue that we cannot coach them into it either. However, if we start early, include all students, and provide them all with authentic STEM experiences, then perhaps we can combat the often needless barriers that exist for so many of our students trying out the field.  

Robotics