The economy is filled with vacant STEM jobs that not enough people are qualified to fill. For whatever reason, there are not enough college students pursuing STEM majors, like coding, robotics, engineering, and more. Could it be something as simple as not realizing that the STEM economy is where the jobs are? Or are students well-informed, but choose to go in a different direction voluntarily? It’s tough to say, but we can all agree that we need more STEM students to go on to fill all these STEM jobs.
The Gender Gap in STEM
Among the top reasons that there are not enough qualified STEM employees is because many students lose interest and never regain it. ‘Okay,’ you might be thinking, ‘that’s obvious,’ but the question is ‘why?’ Unfortunately, one of the reasons there are so many vacant STEM jobs is because the gender disparity of those in the STEM workforce and as STEM majors is so large. Since there are not nearly as many females pursuing STEM as there are males, that, of course, means there are fewer people overall. We’ve discussed this issue before, but it bears repeating, especially at a time when it’s so critical to get students pursuing STEM goals. Pushing more girls to pursue STEM throughout their time in school could significantly help reduce STEM shortages.
It’s important for educators to acknowledge that the gender gap in STEM education is real and, more importantly, that there are some things they can do about it. Even when you think they’re too young to pick up on various messages, girls are very much adept at doing just that. They’re constantly portrayed, albeit usually very subtly, as more inclined to hold certain jobs. They start soaking in these messages at six or seven years old and never slip out of this mindset. Eventually, this comes to fruition and girls give up on STEM for good, leaving more vacancies in the various industries that desperately need help. It seems simple, but it would be very tough for teachers, families, and the media to all come together to be sure they are portraying science as something for girls to pursue.
The stereotypes portrayed in the media and even by their own classmates definitely contribute to girls shying away from STEM. When this starts to happen, it’s crucial that teachers act fast in an effort to pull them back in, but the problem is that they don’t always really realize it’s happening. There are not usually physical indicators, but rather only internal feelings that girls hold. It’s an unfortunate reality, but this is definitely a contributing factor when it comes to the overall STEM employee shortage. To help keep this from happening, teachers and parents need to work together to be sure they are portraying STEM as something exciting and something girls should want to be a part of. No matter how seemingly insignificant these efforts appear to be to a young girl, they could very well make a huge difference in her life.
Lack of Interest in STEM
Could it be true that some students turn away from STEM education simply because they are not interested in it? It may be hard for some parents and teachers to believe, but there will absolutely be some kids who just don’t care about the STEM subjects. Maybe they already have a specific goal in mind or maybe they just don’t enjoy the content areas, but some students simply will not be interested. I can confirm this as I was definitely one of the kids who was not very interested in the STEM subjects, particularly science. Math was alright. We didn’t have classes dedicated solely to technology and engineering way back in the 2000s. Anyway, STEM courses are among those that students are required to take, which is, unfortunately, just about the only way to get some of them involved.
There have to be some tricks educators can use to try to reverse this trend, though, right? Well, aside from making STEM learning irresistible for students, there’s not much else teachers can do. If they don’t have the tools and the freedom themselves, then STEM learning will revert back to the traditional way it’s been taught for decades. If they do have the resources and the determination to continue innovating, educators can make a huge difference in boosting the popularity of STEM among students. It can really be as simple as appealing to their interests to try to make activities as fun as possible for each student. Chances are there is at least one STEM tool out of the hundreds of robotics, coding, or engineering kits that teachers can use to reach a child on their level. Maybe one kid likes designing buildings. This can be used to teach engineering basics, which can lead to them actually building something useful later on.
The commitment to opening up students’ minds to STEM has to begin early—before they start really losing interest. Unfortunately, it may be easier to increase this interest if they were older because teachers would be able to offer more tech options, especially in terms of powerful machines. By the time they reach junior high or high school, however, many students are too far gone, so school and district leaders are forced to use age-appropriate technology to try to keep kids interested in STEM starting early in elementary school. One of the best ways to get students excited and engaged in STEM is hands-on experience. Another is exposure to current and future careers. Hopefully, with some help from their teachers, students can begin to realize the importance of developing STEM skills. No matter what teachers try, however, some students simply will not be interested. It’s okay, though—these students just have other preferences.
The Absence of Role Models
When children step back and take a look at the world, there are some things they absolutely pick up on. These include the fact that men are usually the ones portrayed as holding the most interesting, exciting, and important jobs. Another is that women are often portrayed as holding inferior roles or often holding no professional role at all. So, what do we expect them to discern? Believing that they do not have a place in the STEM fields is not all their fault. They can’t help but begin to believe the messages they are constantly shown. In order to combat this, young children, especially girls, need some form of inspiration. Time and time again, their teachers try to fill this void and be the role models they need, but it’s not always that easy.
It doesn’t take anything extraordinary for teachers or parents to be STEM role models for children. Even if they never pursued something closely related to STEM, it’s become important that they do what they can to steer today’s youth in that direction. At home, parents can try to spark a STEM interest by introducing their kids to STEM-based games rather than meaningless sessions with their device. They can also find ways to weave STEM nuggets into everyday conversation, even when kids are just watching TV. This will likely lead to them finding somebody in a STEM profession they can become a fan of. Doing this early on in a child’s life could help get them engaged in some beneficial activities outside of school with the ultimate goal of helping them develop a genuine interest in STEM.
Having a role model to show them the enjoyment STEM education can bring to their lives is great for any child. Like we said earlier, children pick up on so much even when you think they’re not paying attention. Teachers who lead by example and make STEM learning more of something kids get to do rather than something they have to do are the ones who have the potential to change a student’s life. Even if teachers are not dedicating themselves solely to being a role model for one particular student, their actions in front of the entire class speak volumes. When you think about it, it’s really not all that hard to believe. If a student sees passion and excitement from their teacher time and time again, maybe, just maybe, some of that will rub off on them.
Kids Don’t Believe in STEM’s Importance
Ask any parent or teacher; it’s not always easy to get through to kids—no matter what age they are. When adults try to tell kids what’s best for them, most children mistakenly interpret this as that adult illustrating their control over them. Surprisingly, parents and teachers actually do know what they are talking about a lot of the time, though. They know that the economy is made up mostly of STEM jobs now. They know that a lot of these jobs are not filled. And, they know that it’s up to today’s children to gain the skills to supply the demand that’s needed. Kids, on the other hand, are more inclined to simply go with the flow and take the opportunity to pursue a STEM career only if it falls in their lap.
Rather than taking this approach, however, students should be chasing down every STEM opportunity they can possibly find. This starts in elementary school with exposure to hands-on science classes and even courses dedicated solely to STEM if possible. Once this foundation is established, it will be easier for educators to keep the interest of these students throughout middle and high school. The lack of interest isn’t even necessarily self-generated, either. Teachers can contribute to this lack of interest by playing into the beliefs students hold about STEM’s lack of importance. They need to tell them and, more importantly, show them why it is important every single day. There are plenty of examples of successful STEM workers out there—it shouldn’t be hard to find someone to help inspire students!
Then, of course, educators can take the statistics route. Hitting students with some facts about the importance of STEM and the condition of the current economy is likely to resonate with a lot of them. Even if they’re not quite capable of fully understanding it yet, teachers should still try to make this point from an early age. At the same time, older students should be more able to fully grasp why this is important and reminding them of the statistics after introducing them to them a few years prior is a good form of reinforcement. In a perfect world, this will help students see the importance of developing STEM skills as well as realizing just how far a STEM career can take them. The next time you hear a student ask ‘when am I ever going to need to know this,’ you’ll be ready to help them think about their future and STEM’s place in it.
They Think STEM is too Hard
STEM education is associated with some of the most exciting, intriguing, and challenging professions in the modern economy. Students see this and, especially when they’re young, believe that computer coders and surgeons need an incredible amount of intelligence. While this is partially true, what they need more is practice. No STEM career is too difficult for a child to attain—especially if they get the opportunities to work on the skills required of it for a long time. People don’t just wake up one day and decide to become a doctor, for example. It just doesn’t work like that. They need to be prepared for anything, which is what a STEM foundation can help students become. If they really want to achieve STEM supremacy and make a career out of it, it will not be too hard.
A recent report suggests that many of the students who decide not to pursue STEM shy away from it for the sole purpose of thinking it’s too hard. This explanation seems too simple, but it continues to be true. Students keep passing up opportunities to pursue STEM degrees that would likely set them up to earn much more over their lifetimes than people with other majors. Further, the study revealed that students tend to think that science and math are among the most difficult subjects and don’t consider them worth their time. This appears to carry a good amount of truth with it as the study indicated that only 13 percent of American employees in 2016 held STEM careers while the remaining 87 percent did not. Whether it’s laziness, ignorance, or something else, it appears it’s a common misconception that STEM careers are too difficult in the eyes of modern students.
In the report, there was also mention made of why non-STEM workers chose to pursue something other than science, technology, engineering, or math. Among the top answers were the costs and time it takes to develop high enough levels of skills to succeed in a STEM career. While this certainly isn’t something we want students to hear and start believing, it clearly is a concern among those entering college. It all comes back to interest, however, with a smaller percentage of those interviewed stating that they simply lost interest in STEM somewhere along the line. If students believed that it was easier to achieve STEM success, they wouldn’t think the subject matter was too hard. And, if they didn’t think it would take too much studying and commitment, maybe more of them would be inclined to pursue STEM. Hopefully these trends change over the next few years and we start to see some of these numbers reversing themselves!
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