My instant reaction was to pause, and reflect on what is my “professional”, since the roles I play in my life, educator, studio artist, mother, curious person, all seem to meld together……in what seems to be a constant quest for a fully integrated life, I suppose.
Back to the original question – This experience has pushed me to focus my energies on the importance of fully integrating art and design into a STEM curriculum. It is crucial to not just “integrate” the arts into STEM, but teach the history and practice of the arts from within the curriculum – a full partner – STEAM education. I am lucky enough to have a couple of programs here in the school district that already are built on a STEAM foundation, but the arts still need to be more robust, to become a full partner with the rest.
I am also going to ramp up my own knowledge and use of programming into my studio practice, with the use of Processing and Java Script, in particular Paper.js. That experience will help inform the building of interdisciplinary teams here at school.