Ioannis Miaoulis (Ioannis Miaoulis) is a Greek who went to the United States in 1984 to study mechanical engineering at Tufts University and earned a doctorate in mechanical engineering and a master's degree in economics.Since 2003, he has been the director of the Boston Museum of Science.He strongly advocated engineering education in primary and secondary schools.In a 2017 interview with The Bridge, a journal of the National Academy of Engineering, he cited five reasons for introducing engineering education into primary and secondary schools.
First, the need to strengthen technical literacy.Ninety-eight percent of the things around us are artificial, and without understanding these things, we cannot be considered educated and talented people.
Second, engineering is the best discipline to introduce project pedagogy and problem-solving orientation into the classroom.It's the only discipline that can melt everything—science, technology, art, economics, etc.—into one furnace.It helps to organize children into teams and solve common concerns.
Again, make it more relevant.The way math and science courses are taught today is irrelevant to the interests of children, especially teenagers.Why do teenagers lose interest in science and engineering?It's simple, because twelve or three-year-olds are only interested in themselves and their friends, and that's true of children all over the world.Now math and science teaching is basically out of touch with children's daily lives, especially children in the city, you tell them about trees, volcanoes and other things they are not familiar with, how interested can they be?Girls are often interested in areas that provide value to society, such as in the United States, where half of medical students are women and 85% of veterinary students are women.They also prefer biomedical engineering and environmental engineering.That is, girls are more concerned about relevance.As long as we can design a more relevant curriculum, we can attract children.
Fourth, career guidance.According to the survey, 72% of existing engineers in the United States have relatives or relatives who are engineers.In this way, those who have already become engineers have set an example.In the United States, many people misunderstand engineers and think that engineers are train drivers.For example, the Mars rover walking on Mars is the most breathtaking engineering feat, right?However, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) advertised it as a "science miracle"; later, when something went wrong with the rover, NASA called it an "engineering failure."Why do people think engineers are good?How do kids dream of becoming engineers?Therefore, engineering education should be introduced into primary and secondary schools.Let children know what engineering is all about, will change the situation that "one of the relatives of the previous generation is an engineer, the next generation will choose an engineer career."
Fifth, change the stereotype that girls are not fit for engineering.Tufts University's Faculty of Engineering does not discriminate between male and female students.However, in the first engineering design test after entering the school (which requires spatial imagination and drawing a three-dimensional diagram), the boys generally performed better.This cannot be attributed to genetic differences, as after a period of teaching and training there is no difference in test scores between boys and girls.What's the problem?A Michigan Institute of Technology study has shown that the difference in grades between men and women in engineering subjects is related to what toys they play with as children.In the mid-1990s, after reading this research paper, Miaolis visited the famous toy manufacturer Toys R Us.He was surprised to see Toys R Us distributing architectural assemblies, Lego, K'NEX (a smart assembling toy), and so on, involving 3D visualization, problem solving, construction, and other tasks.Girls who grow up ponytail, and boys who grow up building things, naturally differ greatly in 3D visualization skills, not genetic at all.Now that children play video games, boys' 3D visualization skills have plummeted.
Miaolis is not just advocating, he is doing practical things.He led his students to train teachers, design curricula, and conduct engineering education at a secondary school near his home.He applied for about $2 million from various sources to build a world-class laboratory for the high school.A woman who had designed her own program asked him to be a consultant, later graduated from high school with honors and enrolled at Harvard College in Pennsylvania, where she majored in biology and history.After graduation, she went to Tanzania to set up a foundation to raise funds for the construction of science laboratories for primary and secondary schools.She is clearly following the example of Miaolis.Later, she left the foundation in the hands of local people, returned to the United States, earned a doctorate at Stanford University, and is currently a professor at the University of Minnesota.The girl was just one of Miaolis's "progresses" in expanding engineering education in primary and secondary schools.Later, many universities (including those abroad) came to Miaolis to learn from him, because they also wanted to show their skills in engineering education in primary and secondary schools.