This is a paragraph that uses the Naysayer strategy from the book, “They Say, I Say.”
Some people may disagree and say that arts should be integrated into school curriculum. They think that the STEM ways of teaching should be turned into STEAM so that art is included. It may allow people to have a broader scope of thinking, but would take away from vital teaching time for the more necessary subjects. If people want to do art they can just do it outside of school. People like Yo-Yo Ma would argue that the empathy created by a STEAM course load allows people to excel in all areas because they “understand something deeply… and can thus make unexpected connections.” This may be true, but it still means that the vital time in schools would be taken over by something students can do elsewhere. I learned in my education class that if teachers were to completely cover every single standard given by the state would mean we would stay in grade school for well into our 20s. If we were to have to include arts on top of this we would never get anything done. Teachers should just focus on the necessary topics, STEM, instead of adding art and creating STEAM.
I like how to tied in the thought, that if we learned everything that the state wants us to learn that we would be in grade school for a long time. It puts it into perspective, that yes maybe learning arts would create empathy, but it is not one of the key subjects that we need to learn.
You have a strong presentation and negation of Yo-Yo Ma’s position of turning STEM into STEAM. Your own opinions strengthen your argument considerably. And overall, you did a very good job of negating any possible detail of support for Yo-Yo Ma’s position. With that said, my only suggestion is that you should add in a couple details of support for Yo-Yo Ma’s argument in order to provide both full perspectives to the reader.