Don’t forget to put the “A” in STEM.

I’m not an electrical engineer, but I understand Ohm’s law.

I’m not a welder, but I can weld (not very well).

I’m not a builder, but I have built things (some solid, some not).

I’ve been a serious home mechanic, maintaining and upgrading cars well into the hundreds of thousands of miles, but my Communications degree can’t stand in for an ASE patch.

The trades I mentioned are all deep, honest work with lots of nuance and problem solving involved. Tribal knowledge and experience is how that excellent plumber you hired makes it look easy. He knows what he’s doing, and make no mistake, there’s an art to it.

I recently had the chance to interview Dr. David Cole, founder of Autoharvest.org, Chairman Emeritus of the Center for Automotive Research, and, it turns out, chairman of the board for Building America’s Tomorrow.

We’d gotten sidetracked into a discusssion about the looming shortage of people practicing skilled trades. It’s hard to find replacements for our fast-retiring manufacturing workforce. Without up-and-comers to train, we’re losing knowledge forever. That's what Building America's Tomorrow is up against. 

The problem has been effectively identified, but the popular solution, increased emphasis on STEM education, is lopsided. To be sure, Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math are all important disciplines, but they can seem overly serious and impenetrable to many of the creative kids who will drive our next generation of innovation.

David and I had started out talking about the Corvair, a car for which his father, Ed Cole led engineering. Ed Cole is a General Motors engineering legend who gave us the Chevrolet Small Block V-8 and put us on the track to emissions controls for smog reduction. The thread that runs through all of it is evident, even to a non-engineer like me: creativity.

I can recognize that creative problem solving because I’ve had my own technical challenges throughout the years. That’s why I’ve dabbled in electronics, carpentry, and auto mechanics - I have had a particular arts-driven need. The arts can be a strong introduction to engineering, and they’re getting short shrift.

For example, say you need a dimmable LED light panel for some macro photography. Now, you could buy one, but you also need to pay rent. It’s easy to make an LED array with fixed intensity, but to dim them requires a pulse-width-modulation circuit. It’s not terribly difficult to build, so congratulations, you’re now learning basic electronics because of the arts.

Sound recording has taught me lots and lots of practical physics, and if you’re a sculptor, you’d better have a pretty solid grasp of how to construct a stable armature.

STEM is great, but let’s not forget the happy accidents that happen when you let your hair down. Many serious engineers find creative outlets in the arts, and it’s often these hobbies that lead to breakthroughs at their day jobs.

Let’s make it a point to put the A in STEM. A STEAM curriculum can be a fantastic side door to a deep love and understanding of those crucial STEM fields.

You can’t have innovation without creativity, and you can’t develop creativity without the arts.