Q&A: Kathy Sullivan's take on STEM education and its importance for Ohio and the nation
Gene Monteith |
Monday, August 16, 2010
Kathy Sullivan has long been an advocate for STEM eduation. She led the program design for the original Challenger Center for Space Science Education, served as president and CEO of the Center for Science and Industry (COSI) in Columbus and now heads the Battelle Center for Mathematics & Science Education Policy at The Ohio State University. STEMscape asked Sullivan why STEM education is so important.
At what point did you first understand the sciences were not only something that fascinated you, but something you were good at?
My father was an engineer. My mother had a couple of years of college and never worked outside the home, but was always fascinated by and always read avidly about current events and world affairs. So, asking questions was a family sport. We weren't just given answers, but collaborated with our folks as almost co-discoverers. But the first real glimpse of something I could be good at came around fifth grade when a family friend recognized I had a natural flair for foreign languages. I chose my university largely because they had a fabulous language program. The University of California at Santa Cruz had an unrelenting, unblinking policy that if you intended to major in the natural sciences, you would take three humanities courses; if you intended to major in humanities you would take three science courses and complete them by the end of your freshman year. And so, I was forced to take three science courses. My French lit adviser had a list of courses that he would vector kids towards, and three of them were marine science courses. The subject matter, the time we spent in the field, the stories we heard and read and observed, all of that together crystallized -- and for the first time gave me a picture of what kind of life you can lead if you're in the field sciences.
How have your experiences over the years shaped your view of the need for young people to get a good foundation in the STEM disciplines?
The Jeffersonian philosophy of education as an absolute thread in the fabric of democracy has always resonated with me. The nature of our economy and society is completely infused with scientific and technological capabilities, issues and challenges. It's detrimental to any society to have those powerful capabilities vested in the minds of a tiny guild of scientists and not at all understood by the populace. There's also the issue of equitable opportunity for success in life. And then there are the issues of economic competitiveness, national defense and national security. The era when we could lead in scientific fields because of the advantages we came away with after World War II is over. If we wish to have the benefits of that caliber of leadership again, we have to find a different path to get it -- better STEM education and schools for all students and better opportunities for outstanding education for our brightest leadership-capable students.
You mentioned the surge we came away with after WWII, and Sputnik is often mentioned as a wake-up call that resulted in a new focus on preparing scientists and engineers. Do you think recent developments, like the President's STEM education initiatives, are signs that we are looking at these things in a different way from the way we looked at them in times of crisis?
My impression is that a wider and deeper slice of national leadership has been more actively engaged over the past five years or so than has often been the case in the past. But, unfortunately, if you look at survey data from outfits like Public Agenda, this awareness does not seem to carry over into the general public. You find a lot of resonance and support for the notion that, yes, STEM is important and vital for the nation's future. But when you go to the next set of questions that drive them to personalize that and speak to how important is it for you, how important is it for your child, it disconnects. Commitment to the amount of effort it takes to move you past a bad teacher, or keep you in the game when you find the part of it that's hard for you -- that takes a level of conviction that many of these surveys suggest isn't there.
How do you bridge that gap?
I think I'd get a Nobel Prize if I knew that. At one level the only answer I know, and the one that motivated my work at the Challenger Center and at COSI, is one at a time from the inside out. There's not some bulk place to do it -- it's not an ad campaign. It's about trying to offer to parents, to key influential teachers and to students some more direct experience that triggers that light of discovery and shifts their own convictions.
That seems to be the approach of STEM schools and the Ohio STEM Learning Network. Trying to make it real on a personal level.
I think that's correct, and another way that is helpful about the OSLN approach is project-based learning. To do something and be coached on it rather than have it all parsed out to you in line-by-line instructions is one of the ways you discover that you want to know something because you actually want to get something done. It triggers different motivations. The degree to which projects do connect to or touch some real world person or partner is helpful. So, I think exposure to community partners, internships and projects that touch some community organizations where you might at age 16 or 17 get a glimpse of that would be a real advantage.
What do we need to do to expand on the successes? Is it just more STEM schools, building the network and spreading what works to other schools?
It would be wonderful for 400 kids if you build a school that's much better and gives them better results and a better pathway. But if your real aim is to make a difference at the scale of the state of Ohio, or the nation, a school of 400 kids is a decorative gem. It's lovely, but it's not the whole system. So how does a small school have a large footprint? What mechanisms are needed? How do you make it possible, workable, attractive and viable for a principal and teachers at another school to incorporate the essential DNA of what Metro Early College High School is doing, or what MC2STEM High School is doing? How do you get the DNA propagated around? Those are the questions we need to focus on.