What liberal arts education is for

> I cringe, cringe deeply, to my core, when people try to create socioeconomic mobility by force-pushing tech and STEM and give-them-lucrative-careers content into schools. I cringe even though access to that kind of learning •is• important, and can unlock choices.

> I cringe because at its heart, it is about meeting employer needs, not human needs. It is asking students to conform to the world, not to reshape it. It does not treat children as human beings who are and should be free.

This, this, this 1000%. I deeply detest the focus on STEM above all else at all levels of education. It's one thing to focus in college, but pushing high schoolers, middle schoolers, even elementary school kids to start focusing on how to write code is such a waste of potential. Coding can be learned at any age, but things like reading an impactful book as a teenager, learning a foreign language as a youngster, or building a relationship with a musical instrument or sport can never be recreated after that critical period.

I loved science and technology as a child, but in high school I took an unintentional detour and focused on debate. I learned so many skills and was exposed to so many world views that I never got in my STEM college degrees or experienced in work.

I used to think all these skills were a waste of time, but that's not at all what it's about. We aren't all just cogs in a machine, hoping to deliver the maximum possible value to our employer above all else. We are citizens of this world, we have a civic duty, and we should know how to participate intelligently in all matters of life. Not just our narrow technical specification.