We can all agree that it is irresponsible to give a child a loaded gun, especially without first teaching them how to safely handle such great power. Similarly, it is irresponsible to teach a kid STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) without first ensuring a very healthy dose of good ethics.
Indeed, the future economy will be in short supply of the engineers and scientists that we need. So to satisfy industry (and help folks get jobs) the education system is prescribing an oversized dose of STEM to every child (at the expense of other more important subjects). What’s happening in the process is we are creating an army of very powerful workers who have no idea whatsoever how to use their power wisely.
The Math will tell you it’s possible. The Science will teach you how. Engineering and Technology can make it reality.
But should we do it in the first place? We will not know. How far is too far? We can not say. What trade-offs are worth making in the process? Dunno. Is it Good? Uhhh…
STEM can’t tell you any of that. For that, you need ethics, philosophy, and moral theology. These teach the more serious thinking skills that go far beyond STEM. For every serving of STEM, we should be serving ten servings of good philosophy. Unfortunately, public education has done the opposite. It doesn’t touch moral theology, and if it hasn’t dropped ethics and philosophy altogether, it’s replaced them with a more dangerous and neutered form of it (i.e. a reduction to “wokeness” or a doctrine of “tolerance”). And all of this applies not just to STEM, but to the arts and social sciences, too.
We are manufacturing highly capable change-makers and cheeringly telling them to go out and change the world! The problem is…they haven’t a clue as to what needs changing. We’ve given loaded guns to children. The future is going to be a dangerous place.