This is an ardent plea to the school administration to rethink the way preschool education is thought of in the school and focus on building a curriculum around STEM for preschool. Teaching STEM in the early years enables children to make connections between everyday life and the STEM disciplines. It also lays down the foundations for future success as the skills learned are transferable to other subjects (Liftoff-Staff, 2019). Early exposure to STEM helps build critical thinking skills that are so needed for adult life.

Why Should We Do This?

The question is not why we should do this. For, we are already doing this in our programs. Early childhood is based on STEM already. When a Science activity explores soil or a Maths activity explores shapes of numbers, students are in the exploratory mode leading to a new discovery that STEM has at its core (Boston Children’s Museum, n.d.). What we need to do is to turn it into a legitimate curriculum for the school and run it in an iterative manner, year after year, in order to gain finesse and success in it.

However, if a rationale is required, then research in neuroscience shows us that the basic architecture of a child’s brain is constructed through an ongoing process. This process begins before birth and continues through adulthood (Boston Children’s Museum, n.d.). Hence this age group cannot be ignored as developmental age. Hence we need to build in our eco-system an environment that is brain-building for children.

STEM activities are open-ended and hence generate curiosity. When students are exploring the types of soil available in the field without any controlling mechanism, their freedom to explore nature gets space to express itself. This inculcates the habit that once settled, would direct their life as an explorer, not afraid of making mistakes.

Challenges

Is there anything without a challenge? We need to learn to build an environment that has brain-building experiences for children. For this, we also need educators who are facilitators. That is, available to children when they need guidance and assistance with new ideas. It requires educators who think and work differently and therefore a lot of de-conditioning of the minds that automatically are prone to helping or nurturing.

It also requires a curriculum that allows space for such an exploration that is possible in the classes where the pressure of career or examinations has not started. Hence the stage is set to build some great mental habits in the learners that will stand them in good stead for their lives.

Professional Development

From the teacher to the facilitator, this is where steps in the need for professional development are. For an educator to learn to step back and allow the student to be an explorer. It requires personal development as a person, to become an explorer with the students. Professional development to learn to be a mentor. Training to be a curriculum designer with originality in order to create task formats that lead to independent work by the students. And, finally, an assessment is in three dimensions (Bell, Van Horne, Penuel, & Stromholt, 2016). 

Strategies for Classroom

Some think that giving young children rich STEM experiences will require schools to buy new equipment and materials or that preschool is too young to engage in such activities (McClure, Guernsey,  & Ashbrook, 2017). Preschool, on the contrary, has some powerful platforms for having the students engage in STEM programs.

The one that I found most wow is the use of the power of storytelling in the classroom (McClure, Guernsey, & Ashbrook, 2017). Preschool classrooms already are filled with storytelling sessions, chiefly in language classes. STEM, as in a story, unfolds with suspense and drama and can set the foundation for the mindset that is needed for learning through STEM. These are design thinking, collaboration, executive functions such as short-term memory, impulse control, and cognitive flexibility.  As stories hook us emotionally, this is the way of STEM where emotions are harnessed.

The other way, one that focuses on the development of the mind, is through questions that are open-ended and probing (Boston Children’s Museum, n.d.). These can be ‘tell me what you are doing, ‘what did you notice about the ant?’ or ‘talk to me about your method in adding’.

Assessing may be hard. One can keep it task-based (Brualdi, 2000). Assessing continuously can also be cognitively draining. One can keep it formal and informal. Finally, use rubrics, and involve the students in the development of the same (Brualdi, 2000).

Conclusion

For the sake of raising a generation of students that come equipped with skills to live, and with an understanding that this can be done through a STEM-based curriculum in pre-schools, let us work towards building such a curriculum.

 References

1. Becker, K., & Park, K. (2011). Effects of integrative approaches among science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects on students’ learning: A preliminary meta-analysis. Journal of STEM Education, 12(5), 23-37.  https://www.jstem.org/jstem/index.php/JSTEM/article/download/1509/1394
2.  Bell, P., Van Horne, K., Penuel, B., & Stromholt, S. (2016). How can assessments be designed to engage students in the range of science and engineering practices?  http://stemteachingtools.org/brief/26
3. Boston Children’s Museum (n.d.) STEM sprouts: Science, technology, engineering, and math teaching guide. http://www.bostonchildrensmuseum.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/STEMGuide.pdf
4. Brualdi, A. (2000). Implementing performance assessment in the classroom.   http://www.ascd.org/publications/classroom-leadership/feb2000/Implementing-Performance-Assessment-in-the-Classroom.aspx
5. Liftoff-Staff, L. (2019, March 11). Why STEM Education Is Essential for Younger Kids. https://www.learningliftoff.com/why-stem-education-is-essential-for-younger-kids/.
6. McClure, E., Guernsey, L., & Ashbrook, P. (2017). Where’s Spot? Finding STEM opportunities for young children in moments of dramatic tension. American Educator, 41(3), 125. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1156381.pdf