STEM and Music Education: Justin Shaifer and John Hamilton on Reaching Students

Two guests who work largely outside the traditional classroom joined this episode of edCircuit’s Education Today podcast, presented by Soundtrap for Education, in the summer of 2020. Justin Shaifer, known as “Mr. Fascinate,” is a science communicator, a keynote speaker at FETC 2020, a doctoral student in science education at Teachers College, Columbia University, and the founder and executive director of Fascinate, Inc., a nonprofit that works to excite underrepresented students about STEM careers. John Hamilton, a DJ who has played international festivals and served as an in-game DJ for the Sacramento Kings, co-founded the Dept. of Sound, a Sacramento nonprofit that teaches young people music and podcast production.

Education TodayS1E10 - "Fascinating" Innovation in STEM and Music EducationJuly 7, 2020 · 32 min 43 sPlay episode: S1E10 - "Fascinating" Innovation in STEM and Music Education (32 minutes 43 seconds)0:00-32:43Follow on SpotifyApple

“Imagine if you actually applied yourself”

Shaifer grew up on the South Side of Chicago, raised by a single parent, and said he had absorbed the idea that he would never be as good as others because of where he started. His grades were poor and he was not applying himself. One high school mentor told him, half joking, to imagine what he could do if he actually tried. It took a couple of years to sink in, Shaifer said, but he raised his grades and chose a science career, an unusual path where he grew up.

Volunteering in museums later showed him why that mattered. After he explained a carbon monoxide exhibit to an eight-year-old Black boy in language the child could follow, the boy asked, “Really, man, you’re a scientist?” and told him he wanted to be like him when he grew up. Shaifer realized that no one where he grew up had wanted to be a scientist, and that he had made the field feel possible for that child. That was when he decided to make his work bigger.

Diversity in STEM: STEM is for everybody

He began with diversity in STEM, focusing on students of color and others from historically underrepresented groups. He found that his core message, that STEM is for everybody, cool and accessible, resonated with students of every background.

Generation Z, he said, needs a different approach. He described a sixth grade “class clown” in an after-school workshop who disrupted class by hacking into Shaifer’s quiz game every day. To Shaifer, that showed how intuitively tech-savvy these students are, even when they do not yet have the skills employers want. Gen Z also understands how to use social media to create change, from students who organized after the Parkland shooting to young people leading Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. He argued that schools, after-school programs and museums should use that fluency to get students producing media, not just consuming it.

A personal brand as job security

Shaifer said his “Mr. Fascinate” persona has become consistent with who he is, and that authenticity is what a personal brand is about. Many Gen Z students want personal brands of their own, and he does not dismiss that as a wish to be an influencer. Being known as “the STEM guy,” he said, has become a kind of next-generation job security, because people know where to go when they need what he offers. He helps students build similar reputations as graphic designers, photographers or videographers, and argued that how people present themselves online, which employers check before hiring, should be taught in school.

STEM moves fast and education moves slowly

Asked where STEM education stood, Shaifer’s answer was short: “Very far behind.” On the positive side, students already see technology as cool, shaped by high-profile technology leaders and brands. But many do not know where to gain the skills at scale, and in many underrepresented communities those conversations are not happening at all. Educators, he said, have a responsibility to inspire students and help them navigate a sea of information.

The deeper problem is pace. New coding languages and technologies appear constantly, while curricula can last for decades. Shaifer called for more direct teaching from companies to students, as some technology companies already do with free curriculum, so that “bleeding edge” knowledge reaches students before they enter the workforce, while acknowledging that industry experts are not always good teachers.

A Data Insight on edtech plans

The episode’s Data Insight from The Learning Counsel drew on a survey of nearly 19,000 state, district and school administrators at the end of the 2019-20 school year. More than half planned to buy learning management, student information or single sign-on systems; 43 percent planned to buy digital courses; more than a third planned to buy curated content libraries; 29 percent planned adaptive courseware purchases; and 24 percent planned to buy computer hardware.

Audio access as a utility

Hamilton said the Dept. of Sound is named like a public utility, such as a department of water, because he and his co-founder, a friend since age 14, wanted every young person to have access to audio production, not only those who happen to attend a school with a well-equipped music department. Music making brings cognitive and social-emotional benefits, he said, and it can also uncover young people who are “bound to be artists” but would never otherwise get the chance.

Both founders left Sacramento at 18 because they could not find the music and entertainment opportunities they wanted there. Today, Hamilton said, much of the industry works online, so a young artist does not need to live in Los Angeles, Nashville, New York or London. A laptop, stable living costs and a good headspace go a long way. The program also kept costs low for schools and community centers: where there was no computer lab, the team brought a fleet of inexpensive Chromebooks, and sometimes taught in a community center’s garage.

Teaching music online

When schools closed in March 2020, the Dept. of Sound had about ten days to move its in-person program online. Instructors learned to understand what might be happening on the other side of a screen when a student’s camera was off, and began holding one-on-one sessions with every student. The most powerful moments, Hamilton said, came when students played their beats or podcasts for the class and received applause and feedback. “They light up,” he said.

For the summer, the organization moved its one-month Academy series in music and podcast production online, expecting 300 to 400 students, and released a self-paced course that walks anyone through making beats, songs and podcasts with the free version of Soundtrap. To finish, participants upload their own work.

Isolation also brought a creative benefit. Hamilton described pairing friends who could no longer meet to build beats together over video chat, which he found more rewarding than another video call spent simply looking at each other. Limits, he said, foster creativity: a student with only a laptop has no excuse about studio time, and has to make something with what they have.

Listen to the full conversation in the player above, or find every episode on the Education Today show page.

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