An Asian Mum's Perspective: Inner Thoughts about STEM

I started to write at www.mumtechpreneursg.com earlier and at times, I would share my thoughts about Parenting and how Singapore Government had enhanced and enriched the life of the future generations in particular, for the Education segment.

My elder girl had shared with me that there will be an introduction of basic coding for Upper Primary next year. Many lauded the move including yours truly. So this is my thoughts:

STEM is in trend but not all embraced the "orthodox" method of learning.

Science, Technology, Engineering & Math (STEM) classes have been widely introduced in U.S and the Western Countries where kids as young as 5 years old learned about the basic concept of STEM. However I feel that Asian parents still placed a stronger focus on the traditional academics and neglected the need for STEM despite the rising trends for Technologies and the worldwide storage for STEM talents especially in the areas of tech.

I chanced upon the article that in Singapore, the Government is adopting a proactive approach to introduce basic coding classes for the Upper Primary from Year 2020 as part of the education curriculum. It used to be optional but now compulsory. I guessed, the need to train the future industry talents to curb the manpower and talent shortage is indeed a pressing issue.

And I'm definitely a fan of anything that's NOT academic. Learning should be fun especially when one is younger. One can afford to make more (and perhaps more expensive) mistakes and instead of being heavily pressured to chase the papers.

I kind of reminisced the days where I would figure how to "crash" my mum's kitchen by cooking real food and having fun with my friends spending real time together instead of now, my kids favoured over Youtube "Toys Reviews", check out what the rest are up to via Youtube or social media. Kids being kids, we should all learn by doing not just by seeing and etc.

Hopefully as the generations evolved, Governments will take a stronger approach in granting a more holistic education and it's a good start now as I see more and more talents in the "cold" industry such as Arts, Music and Theatre Plays.

Thus I ponder, will parents be keen to explore workshops with kids at their early fundamentals years?

The above post too had appeared here.