The surrounding context of this essay is that the arts play a crucial role in life, and the stigma of STEM being the primary learning path, needs to be changed too STEAM. The essay was first published by The World-Post and written by Yo-Yo Ma. I notice that the author has a very decorated career in the music industry as well as many accolades to mark him as a reliable source.  The circumstantial context can be labelled as the benefits and ways to better balance the world. The circumstances surrounding my personal experience include confusion, a bit of disagreement, followed by uncertainty since the points brought up make sense.  The, “so what?” can be defined as the effect of not introducing the world to STEAM. If STEM learning stays how it is and does not become geared towards STEAM, then the effects as we were told, are going to greatly harm us. We will spend the ending years of our life being treated by those greatly influenced by STEM and not finding the balance that would help us delay the impending doomsday of our society.

  1. Tandem- Having two things arranged, one in front of each other.
  2. bandwidth- The energy or material needed to deal with something.
  3. Suites (music)- A collection of short musical pieces that can be played one after the other.