Opinion
College & Workforce Readiness Opinion

No, Engineering Isn’t Just About Job Creation

By Christine M. Cunningham — February 19, 2019 4 min read
BRIC ARCHIVE
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

When a group of 5th graders from John Murdy Elementary School in Garden Grove, Calif., started a fundraiser to help kids affected by the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, it wasn’t because of what they learned in social studies class. It was because of what they learned through studying engineering.

Their teacher, Camie Walker, unlocked the full potential of engineering as a subject that helps students understand the world around them, ask questions about how they can change and improve their world, and find solutions to those questions. This week is the national Engineers Week, and what she did should offer a reminder that the subject is important for more than just job creation.

Over the years designing the Museum of Science Boston’s EiE engineering curricula, I’ve heard countless stories from teachers like Camie Walker as they welcomed me into their classrooms to learn how engineering is introduced in schools. It’s from these conversations, pilot programs, and observations that I’ve gained entirely new insights into why we need to introduce engineering to students during their earliest years of schooling.

Walker posed a question to her class: Why did devastating earthquakes of similar magnitude kill 230,000 people in Haiti and only 25 people in California? She challenged the students to consider how buildings are engineered—how materials and the arrangement of those materials create an earthquake-resistant building.

Looking at engineering as a means to create future workers alone is not sufficient.

Her students experimented with many materials, including mud and adobe, that are often used to build homes on the island. They saw just how fragile those materials are. And they tested various configurations of materials on shake tables to see how they withstood earthquake simulations. Students came to understand that the differences in how structures were engineered explained the different consequences of the quake in the two countries.

But then Walker took the lesson a step further. She brought in a representative from the nonprofit Hope for Haiti to talk to her students about what people there experienced, and the hardships they still face.

The students quickly decided they wanted to help people in Haiti and sought a solution they could execute. Through their conversations with Hope for Haiti staff, the students learned about a Haitian boy their age who made bracelets and sold them on the street to support his family. They started making bracelets themselves, which they sold in school and around town to raise more than $2,000 for Haitian causes.

As they designed earthquake-resistant structures, these preteens learned a fundamental tenet of being an engineer: Engineers seek solutions to a problem. Engineering entails learning about the external factors contributing to the problem, understanding the needs of those impacted by the problem, and designing a technology that can help meet those needs. Through engineering, these students were introduced to the struggles of people in a completely different part of the world and were compelled to help.

That is the true power of engineering as a teaching tool—it connects children to the world around them and helps them envision new possibilities. In this case, children learned that they can design technologies that change the world around them.

And yet, we continue to sell it short.

The most common reasons offered these days for introducing young children to science, technology, engineering, and math center around job and economic opportunities. We, finally, accurately see K-12 engineering as a pathway to the careers of the future. I am grateful that this goal has led to interest in incorporating engineering curricula into American schools.

Engaging students in classroom activities that can expand their thinking about possible trajectories and futures is important. But as we think about the well-being of students (and our country), looking at engineering as a means to create future workers alone is not sufficient.

It’s true that today’s children will grow up to a world of more complex jobs. But they will also inherit a world that has more complex challenges than we ever faced—socially, economically, and environmentally. The next generation of students need a set of habits of mind that enable them to solve the problems they encounter. Some of these will be technical in nature. But other, non-technical problems still benefit from the same habits of mind. That is what engineering can do if it’s taught well—help young people become problems-solvers and foster skills that serve them well their whole lives.

Engineering teaches skills essential for life in the 21st century: problem-solving, collaboration, systems thinking, persistence through failure, creativity and innovation, and evidence-based decisionmaking. It encourages those involved in solving a problem to listen to and understand each other.

It’s time that we look at engineering as a foundational subject that can provide the glue in a robust educational experience that prepares students for life.

That’s the thinking behind what Camie Walker and her class at John Murdy Elementary did. She used engineering to help kids understand that everything is connected, to teach them to ask questions, and to think and then take action. She unlocked the true power of engineering.

As many stories this week will focus on how engineering can help fill 21st-century jobs, it’s time that more schools follow her lead and teach engineering to its fullest potential.

Events

School & District Management Webinar Crafting Outcomes-Based Contracts That Work for Everyone
Discover the power of outcomes-based contracts and how they can drive student achievement.
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
School & District Management Webinar
Harnessing AI to Address Chronic Absenteeism in Schools
Learn how AI can help your district improve student attendance and boost academic outcomes.
Content provided by Panorama Education
School & District Management Webinar EdMarketer Quick Hit: What’s Trending among K-12 Leaders?
What issues are keeping K-12 leaders up at night? Join us for EdMarketer Quick Hit: What’s Trending among K-12 Leaders?

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

College & Workforce Readiness As Biden Prepares to Leave Office, He Touts His 'Classroom to Career' Work
At a White House event, the president and first lady highlighted their workforce-development efforts.
3 min read
President Joe Biden speaks at the Classroom to Career Summit in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024.
President Joe Biden speaks at the Classroom to Career Summit in the East Room of the White House in Washington on Nov. 13, 2024.
Ben Curtis/AP
College & Workforce Readiness Can the AP Model Work for CTE? How the College Board Is Embracing Career Prep
The organization known for AP courses and the SAT is getting more involved in helping students explore potential careers.
5 min read
David Coleman, CEO of the College Board, speaks at the organization's annual conference in Austin, Texas, on Oct. 21, 2024.
David Coleman, CEO of the College Board, speaks at the organization's annual conference in Austin, Texas, on Oct. 21, 2024. Long an institution invested in preparing students for college, the College Board increasingly has an eye on illuminating career options.
Ileana Najarro/Education Week
College & Workforce Readiness The Way Schools Offer CTE Classes Is About to Change. Here's How
The revision could lead to significant shifts in the types of jobs schools highlight, and the courses students are able to take.
4 min read
Photo of student working with surveying equipment.
E+
College & Workforce Readiness Even in Academic Classes, Schools Focus on Building Students' Workforce Skills
Schools work on meeting academic standards. What happens when they focus on different sets of skills?
11 min read
Students participate in reflections after a day of learning in Julia Kromenacker’s 3rd grade classroom at Old Mill Elementary School in Mt. Washington, Ky. on Wednesday, October 16, 2024.
Students participate in reflections after a day of learning in Julia Kromenacker’s 3rd grade classroom at Old Mill Elementary School in Mt. Washington, Ky., on Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024. The Bullitt County district that includes Old Mill Elementary has incorporated a focus on building more general life skills, like collaboration, problem-solving, and communication, that community members and employers consistently say they want from students coming out of high school.
Sam Mallon/Education Week