Why not just give them STEM?

A comment on a post I made questioned whether classical education is the best fit for those students who “aren’t all that interested in history and the humanities and the great books.” Why not just give them STEM?

Vocational or technical training isn’t evil, but it isn’t actually education in the historical sense, and is additionally increasingly at great risk of giving students obsolete skills in the age of AI.

If education properly understood is the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to the next (Chesterton), or the forming and cultivating of wisdom and virtue in truth, goodness, and beauty, then the task of education from a practical standpoint looks like turning the affections of students who “aren’t all that interested” in the great books or humanities towards those great books and humane subjects in some capacity.

To give them pure STEM is to give them impotent STEM. There is nothing evil in being uneducated or in being a slave for that matter. A man can have dignity and worth, even without the ability to articulate why, or understand human nature. There is great room for craftsmen who learn a specific task and do it faithfully. But no matter what modern “degree” such a person has, that’s simply not education.

So I think we should reframe it slightly: granted, not everyone needs to be educated. But Christians in particular should desire their children to be a royal priesthood of educated saints, trained in the arts of being free (liberal arts).

Photo: a one room schoolhouse in the Italian alps where generations of Huguenot (Waldensian) children were educated up in the mountains.

Note: Lest anyone think we don’t need STEM, read my favorite article by Dr. Mitch Stokes on STEM and the Liberal Arts.