STEM majors and NY congressional maps
![STEM learning is good, but STEM plus arts and humanities...](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.newsday.com%2Fimage-service%2Fversion%2Fc%3ANzIxZWVmMDQtZDBiMi00%3AMDQtZDBiMi00MmYyZjAw%2Flitest230108_photos.jpg%3Ff%3DLandscape%2B16%253A9%26w%3D770%26q%3D1&w=1920&q=80)
STEM learning is good, but STEM plus arts and humanities is better, a reader writes. Credit: Newsday/J. Conrad Williams Jr.
STEM is better with arts and humanities
The editorial “Don’t let majors STEM arts skills” is spot on [Opinion, Aug. 11].
Of course, we need to try to enable all students to achieve financial security as adults, but we also desperately need to nourish their souls. The arts and the humanities do that.
Spare me, a former educator, from a generation embracing artificial intelligence or the next best bomb absent a moral, philosophical or historical context. Emphasizing STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) almost to the exclusion of other studies would leave us with exactly that generation.
So we should all think about these pieces of wisdom:
“Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers,” wrote William Wordsworth.
“All things in moderation,” wrote several philosophers.
“Writing [makes] an exact man,” Francis Bacon said.
We should also be instructed by Abraham Maslow’s “hierarchy of human needs.” First, meet such basic needs as food, shelter and safety, but strive ultimately for self-actualization.
STEM is good, but STEM plus arts and humanities is better.
— Joseph Darrigo, Miller Place
A redistricting redo is bad for elections
If the Court of Appeals agrees to change New York’s congressional maps, it would be an attack on free elections in the state “Court: Redo Congress districts,” News, July 14]. The map created by the special master is a work of art and one of the fairest in the nation. But now, the Democratic majority in Albany wants to scrap the maps and gerrymander its own, presumably because the Democrats lost the U.S. House of Representatives.
Furthermore, the state constitution does not address mid-decade redistricting.
But this is what could happen. The Court of Appeals allows for another redistricting, then the majority in Albany votes down the two Independent Redistricting Commission maps. A gerrymandered map is created, and New York suffers another political power grab.
If New Yorkers care about our democracy, this power grab should be opposed.
— Dean Gandley, Rocky Point
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