Blowing Off Some STEM

Am I the only one feeling a little tired of the obsessive focus on STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) not just in our educational circles, but in American culture overall?

I know these things go in cycles, but I feel like this trend has been dominating the discourse since the Cold War, with only occasional, brief time-outs to swing the other way (or, more often, to provide political cover that essentially changes nothing).  And now the movement has this shiny “STEM” branding that makes us think it’s an original development, when really it’s just the same old.

Yes, of course science and math and engineering and all that are important.  No one would suggest otherwise.  Kids need instruction in and exposure to all appropriate subject areas.

But no one ever suggests that every kid needs to come out of high school a poet.  Why does it feel that, on the contrary, we’re being told that every kid has to come out of high school an engineer?

Newsflash: some—lots of—kids’ brains don’t work well in the STEM area.  Just as we’ve always acknowledged that they don’t all work well in the lit-n-arts area.

You may say it’s not an issue—that I’m bemoaning a conflict without belligerents.

But when, exactly, in the past hundred years, have the STEM subjects  been at risk of disappearing in favor of literature, grammar, foreign languages, and the arts?

It is these latter subjects that are under constant threat of being cut, defunded, excised, and generally overwhelmed by the “hard stuff.”  Sounds like a conflict to me.

And while I appreciate the burgeoning “STEAM” variant that shoe-horns an “A” for “arts” in there, it doesn’t quite cut it for me.  For those who are sincerely trying to push this alternative, it seems like their efforts are still somewhat ghettoized, while when more “venerable” and entrenched education organizations adopt it, it feels like lip service.  It’s hard to take STEAM seriously as a force when STEM is still entrenched in the way the government discusses education and even immigration policy.

It’s explicitly science and technology, after all, that are enjoying a surge in high-visibility promotional campaigns.  I can’t turn on the TV without being reminded that “we’re not popular...but we know how computers work,” meaning that all those brainless bullies “will work for us someday.”  Revenge of the nerds via STEM!  How charming.

Then there are the big gas companies partnering with media conglomerates to turn sports into an opportunity for on-the-fly scientific analysis that would make NASA blush.  (Just once I’d like to see a commercial featuring a high school football player reflecting on the ways his chosen sport reveal the hidden nature of the human condition in the clash of antagonistic forces... )   I guess there’s always a chance that some of the kids Chevron is trying to inculcate here might end up pioneering ways to fight climate change, but that’s probably not high on any curricula they’re interested in designing.

The Connect-a-Million-Minds project is based entirely on this premise that sports and STEM go together.  Maybe I spoke too soon about  that nerd revenge.  Now I’m starting to feel like efforts are underway to cleanse all geeks from America’s shores--replace the STEMmy ones with jocks, reducing every engineering problem to “how to get the ball through the goal,”  and just ignore and defund the artsy ones out of existence.

And thus a great American dream for which the red-blooded nation has been striving since the 1950s will finally be accomplished.

I’m exaggerating, of course.  A little.  The point is, STEM is deeply entrenched in the planning process of American education policy, with curricula shaped to its needs, big-time corporate conglomerates for sponsors, and a propaganda arm as wide and bristly as Stalin’s accursed mustache.  STEM will be here to stay, while the vestigial appendage of the arts continues to wither, one French program and lit magazine and photography club at a time.

So, as in so much else, it should be the librarian’s task to pick up the slack.  Let us not give in to the drumbeat of all-consuming STEM.  Let’s fill our libraries with books, materials, and marketing for all things literary and artistic.  And not just for the kids—for the adults, too…you know, those larger, slightly lumbering things we insist we want to aid with “lifelong learning”?  For that matter, lifelong learning need not be limited to computer training.  That is, obviously, just as important for adults as for kids, if not more so.  But what about creative writing?  What about pottery?  What about poetry?  What about dance?

All kidding aside, the kids—and adults—whose brains work in the STEM mode will be very important to the future of our society.  They will be the computer engineers, the architects, the urban planners, the doctors, and the mathematicians and scientists charting unheard-of new discoveries.

But where will we be if we neglect the kids (and adults!) whose talents and temperaments lie in the arts?  These are the people who will be making the world a beautiful place.  They will be the people helping us laugh in troubled times.  They will be, like Dickens and Steinbeck and Morrison before them, the cartographers charting the moral landscape of our society.

It may be hard to pin a future value to that.  But look around the stacks of your library and tell me you can’t estimate the value they’ve had every day up to now.  Tell me you don’t think we should be fostering those skills and talents and temperaments just as ferociously as the STEMmy kids’.

Hiya Hiya Hiya: I'm back; quarterly media review

I’m back from a long trip, and have taken a week to dig myself out from under my piles of correspondence, tv, and dirty laundry.  I wanted to swing back into action with something a little more meaty, but, well, wishes and fishes.  Instead, as I so enjoyed my year-end review of media back in December, I thought I would inaugurate the practice as a quarterly thing.  Writing this has left me plenty of time to finish my laundry for real (but I still haven’t).

Rest assured that I have plenty of topics in mind for the coming weeks--Snowden and the NSA!  “Information scientists”!  Being civil in the course of criticism!  What’s a guy gotta write to go viral around here?  If none of that works I’ll have to pretend I’m an adorable moppet doing a social media experiment, and nobody wants that.

Books

Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson--book 2 of “The Stormlight Archive”

I feel about Brandon Sanderson as I do about Patrick Rothfuss, but with less venom.  I think both are weak writers who get way more acclaim from the fandom than they deserve, and I don’t always understand why, except that they offer certain surface-level satisfactions to fantasy fans. In Sanderson’s case, it’s uber-clever magic paired with eye-bleeding action.  In this, the second volume, of his great epic, the self-indulgence afforded by all that acclaim continues on into bloat.   

What’s more, Sanderson gives the impression of never having really lived.  As a result, he replaces any human sensibility in his work with an approximation of the adrenaline rush you get from the last level of your favorite video game.  He’s often praised for his cinematic writing, and I would agree, with the caveat that he fulfills only the most shallow definition of the term: he provides motion and spectacle with none of the visualized heart that good filmmakers perfected in the nineteen-aughts.  Plus, he continues to double down on humor in his writing that just...needs to stop.

So that’s more of my review of Sanderson than of this book, but I think it fits.

Dune by Frank Herbert

I hesitated to read this sci-fi classic for years; the genre is not my favorite, for one, but I also feared its space opera themes would fly over my head.  (Ah, pride!)  Well, it’s definitely a challenging read, but it’s also an extremely rewarding one, as well as just being beautifully written and thrilling to experience.  You’ll wonder why modern Americans can’t think about the ecological future of the planet as cogently as the Fremen do about Arrakis.  Now, I’m pleased to have finally rounded out my exploratory tastes of sci-fi classics--the others being Foundation and Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy--and look forward to continuing with the Dune series and beyond.

One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill Bryson

A rollicking, romping, compulsively readable look at a particular moment in American history, one that aptly reminds us how interrelated seemingly distant happenings can be--in this case, flight, baseball, natural disasters, and more.  It makes me wish Bryson would similarly treat every season of every year in world history, to tease out the fascinating connections between events.  What a project that would be.  For now, it’s enough to soak up this volume, and enjoy the sketches provided of Lindbergh, Ruth, Hoover and others--by turns hilarious, enlightening, and disturbing.  (Try not to get choked up at Calvin Coolidge’s account of his early loss.)

TV

True Detective

Most everything I watch is still in the thick of things right now, but this HBO series provided a compact, muscular character study of two broken men.  Now, I wasn’t too dense to notice the meta-narrative going on here, with the detectives’ exploits framed by their own sometimes guarded (to say the least) reminiscences in a contemporary police interview.  But, to be honest, I was too enthralled by Harrelson and McConaughey's bravura performances to worry too much about that, as well too busy keeping my eyes peeled for Lovecrafty references.  But the show rewards deep thinking and subsequent rewatches, which I intend to undertake soon.  And that opening credits scene is worth the price of admission all on its own.

Movies

I haven’t seen a one yet this year!  That’ll change with the next installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe next week, though--Captain America: The Winter Soldier.  I’ll report back at some point.

Games

Dune

Here’s a weird fluke: I played the board game version of a famous novel before reading it.  Only barely, in this case, but still.  My lack of skill with this 70s cult classic (and rather early example of the high-concept board game trend) ensured a speedy defeat in only three or so rounds, but from what I saw of the game--its network of competing factions, its sandstorm and sandworm mechanics, and its built-in capacity for betrayal--whet my appetite for more playing and more reading.

Puerto Rico

Classic.  Just ignore the optics of importing little brown meeple to work your estates.  (Hey, points for historical accuracy, I guess?)  This game was interesting in that players don’t seem to be competing with each other within the framework of the same representation of the island colony, but rather across separate versions of Puerto Rico, each little ‘god’ vying to make his or her version the most optimized.  But then you work with the same shipping mechanic, so maybe not.  It’s a little garbled that way, but it’s a lot of fun.

Masquerade

I so enjoyed Citadels, the previous game by this designer, and Masquerade did not disappoint as a follow-up. This game has the remarkable mechanic of hidden identities--even from yourself.  Each turn consists of three basic actions--you can either peek at your own face-down character card to ascertain your own identity, declare yourself to be a certain character to claim that character’s special ability, or--fun!--blind-swap your card with another player’s, ensuring that you can rarely be sure who you or your opponents are.  If you opt for choice 2, though--”I am the bishop!” for example--one or more of your opponents can chime in to challenge you--”No, I’m the bishop!”  Then you check, and whoever was right (if anyone) gets to use the power, and whoever was wrong has to give up some coin.  I wouldn’t delve so deeply into the minutiae of these simple-enough rules, except that I think they’re delicious.  It was a great fun time, and it’s the kind of game that stays competitive throughout.

Bang

Another hidden-identity game (only this time you get to know who you are, at least).  I liked this one, especially because it takes a genre I don’t usually care about--wild west--and got me invested.  Before playing, I fell into the trap of thinking that mechanics for a rusty, old-timey genre would be equally dated-feeling, but Bang straddles the line between feeling thematically appropriate and happily universal.  The sheriff is the only players whose identity begins open, and the first few rounds are concerned with ferreting out who his deputies are and who the outlaws are (and don’t forget about that pesky renegade!), with each side pursuing its own victory conditions.  The scads of cards that modify your weaponry and range, heal your wounds and dodge fire lead to action-packed rounds.  Friends take hits and justice hangs in the the balance.  It also comes in a giant bullet-shaped container, so it’s really more fun that you can shake a cactus at.

Viva Librarianism Newsflashes!

Welcome back to the blog!   Since I’ve been negligent again lately, this post is actually three in one.  You’ve been warned!

ITEM. Nerd Rage!

I’m a big comic geek from way back, so I’ve been watching Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD on ABC with great interest.  It’s nice to see Agent Coulson--speculate on whether he’s a Life Model Decoy now, and wonder what really happened with Tahiti--as well as to get to know the other new agents.

But I am concerned.  We’re two episodes in, so there’s still plenty of room for me to be proven wrong, but so far there is very little of the Marvel Universe in this Joss Whedon-scripted show.  And, sadly, I don’t really have time for another basically generic sci-fi/adventure show, not if it’s merely draped in the imprimatur of a beloved institution without even working to build on the cinematic beachhead the Marvel Cinematic Universe has established.

So, even though no one asked me (come on, Joss), here is a list of characters that Agents of SHIELD could employ that I’m fairly certain fall into the stable now owned by Disney (not even counting Yoda and Darth Vader). This list is hardly exhaustive, but it is diverse and includes characters who would be light on the budget and high on the dramatic potential.

• Cloak & Dagger
• Night Thrasher and most of the New Warriors
• She-Hulk
• Monica Rambeau/Photon
• Batroc the Leaper
• Taskmaster
• The Black Knight
• Hercules and the Olympians
• Starfox, Sersi and the Eternals
• Wonder Man and the Grim Reaper
• Radioactive Man (already left on the Avengers cutting room floor)
• Absorbing Man and Titania
• The Skrulls
• The Kree
• AIM
• The Serpent Society
• The Secret Empire
• Hellcat
• Hank Pym and the Wasp (obviously), and Scott Lang, sure
• Luke Cage (since our hopes for episode one were dashed)
• Fin Fang Foom (pretty please?)
• The Great Lakes Avengers (just kidding)
• Zemo, Moonstone, Goliath (III), Fixer, Beetle, and Screaming Mimi (to begin setting up for a Thunderbolts arc/movie a few years down the line, of course--I would also accept another lineup with the same concept)
• Graviton
• The Maggia
• The Crimson Cowl
• Klaw
• Triathlon

...and so on.

I’ll even give you a great storyline idea, Joss.  (Feel free, dear readers, to skip the next paragraph if you can only handle geekery up to a certain point.)

SHIELD calls in prickly lawyer Jennifer Walters to consult on issues of superhuman rights.  (If the movies are planning to go in a Civil War route, it might be a good idea to float this topic years in advance on the TeeVee.)  Walters is frankly confused by SHIELD’s interest in her opinions, as she has no particular professional connection to the topic, but she has her unspoken suspicions.  Just as the interpersonal clashes reach a head, the team is attacked (by HYDRA, by AIM, by the Serpent Society, the Secret Empire, anyone real, please!), and Walters is grievously wounded.  All hope of finding a match for her unique blood type seems lost, until a courier arrives with a donation from a mysterious source.  Walters is saved, but with unexpected consequences--she transforms into the savage She-Hulk!  She rampages for an episode before her body and mind get in sync with the changes from being imbued with Gamma-irradiated blood, and She-Hulk recovers her normal personality, though she is noticeably sunnier of disposition.  Her cousin, it turns out, is Bruce Banner, the Hulk himself, and he risked revealing his currently vague location to save her; he was the reason for SHIELD bringing Jennifer into the fold, hoping she would shed light on the personality and potential liabilities of Banner.  The agents wonder at Jennifer’s ability to maintain a human personality in Hulk-form, while Banner is prey to animal-like rages.  Walters speculates that the Gamma transformation somehow magnifies the emotions at the core of a person’s psyche, and that while Banner’s is all torment and anger, her own is essentially happiness--happiness built up through her normal childhood with a loving family, her fulfilling career, and so on.  Bruce, she remembers, was full of sadness and anger even as a child, when they would occasionally get together during the summers.  It seems Bruce remembers his cousin fondly and was not willing to stand by and let her die.  Knowing he must be in pain having caused this transformation, Jennifer publically thanks her cousin for giving her this new life, asserting that she’s happy being “big, green and beautiful.”  She agrees to remain as a consultant for Coulson’s team (and a recurring character!).  [Oh and obviously the paramilitary attackers will play into the plot somehow, handwave timey-wimey season long arc.]

So how about it, Joss?  I’ll accept a co-writing credit and a reasonable honorarium…

ITEM. NYLA 2013

I attended the NYLA conference in Niagara Falls this year, since it was relatively local.  I got to see some old LIS world friends, at the conference itself and at the reception hosted by my former department, which was definitely a highlight (as was getting to meet the new chair).

The conference, though, left me somewhat underwhelmed.  For one thing, Niagara Falls is pretty dead, which I think casts a pall over all such proceedings.  For another, the early start time of sessions was prohibitive to my getting in to see much of what I would have liked to, traveling all the way from Fredonia as I was.  And finally, the vendor hall seemed somewhat scanty, and packed up and shipped out Friday night.  I guess I’m unfairly comparing the NYLA experience to the ALA conference, but I expected slightly more from the Empire State.

What I had no reservations about were the two sessions I was able to attend.  First was an eye-opening discussion of the plight and status of refugees in our country, with a case study of the efforts of agencies in Utica to support them and integrate them into our society while also maintaining their cultural differences that makes the United States so excellent.  (Uticans sound like very lucky people to have such a melting pot of a community.)  Obviously the library has an important role to play in this, offering welcoming services, translations of important documents, educational opportunities, and a place to build a sense of community within and beyond the refugee population.

Next was a session on makerspaces.  This was mostly given over to various librarians discussing what they’ve done and how they did it, but that in itself was inspiring; in addition, I gleaned two important takeaways: 1) a library makerspace need not be the sparkling, high-tech robot-filming-3D-podcast money pit that the term usually immediately conjures--though those are good if you can do it--but can just as easily be comprised of knitting circles, cooking classes, or any skills the members of your community want to share; and 2) a makerspace is possible if you have a tiny bit of space for it and the will to make it work.  Don’t mind if I do!

ITEM. Leaf-Peeping and Library-Looking in New England

Went on a little excursion with my aunt this past week to Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont.  Beautiful scenery and very tasty, strangely old fashioned foods in Derry, NH, Manchester, VT, and Stockbridge, MA.  But you’re only interested in the libraries, huh?

I didn’t do an exhaustive study on this trip, but Derry has a very approachable, contemporary public library with a dandy graphic novel collection (superhero titles shelved with the teen section) and copies of David Eddings’ and Tad Williams’ fantasy novels for me to peruse.  Stockbridge, MA, meanwhile, has a much more old-fashioned feeling library, in a charming brick colonial building that would probably drive me crazy to work in, but which was lovely to visit.  The basement is home to a very comprehensive historical society that has pleasantly cluttered, researched-in feel (and hey compact shelving!  Nice to see you again).

I’ve been fall-crazy this year so it was a nice excursion, and it’s always good to get into new libraries.  As the season continues, maybe I’ll share some of my ghoulish thoughts on how libraries ought to serve as centers of paranormal investigation!  Yes, we all have fun here.