I was recently in a situation where I needed to weigh the benefits of children having time in some sort of planned activity, where they had chosen the topic, versus having nothing scheduled and needing to come up with plans on the fly.  

I had mixed feelings for this particular situation, but I kept thinking about my initial reactions when I read this BBC article recently, advocating for enough unstructured time for children to become bored..  For me, one of the biggest obstacles I can face is the procrastination before starting a project.  Though I don't know I get bored very often, I do sometimes get stuck, overwhelmed by all the things that could be done, and that lack of a plan very much resembles boredom..  

I can't help but think that the long Saturday afternoons at my childhood house, with no plans, allowed me practice at getting started and at overcoming boredom.  I think the time spent staring at my bedroom wall, until the brilliant plan to create a Barbie doll play or draw a neighborhood with my crayons emerged., was extremely valuable for me.  

The extracurricular competition so many students seem to be in makes this free time impossible.  I'm wondering how we can societally return to a time of better balance?  Where is the tipping point for this?

I am an arts person.  
Definitively. 

So the STEM movement (science, technology, engineering, and math), when I first hear of it, made me do an imaginary eye roll.  While I find nothing wrong with these disciplines, indeed they are necessary, I find a further emphasis on black and white numbers (which must imply a deemphasis on ambiguous and grey humanities) to be another simplified solution to problems in education.  

My knowledge of STEM has expanded a bit since I first heard of it, and it is encouraged by articles like this.  Project-based learning based in engineering fields is certainly something my constructivist, student-centered self can support.  

I do have to wonder, however, if "these niche schools are built on project-based learning, critical thinking and collaboration," as the article states, why is this a construction from science, technology, engineering, and math?  Is this a function not of those disciplines, but just of good teaching?  Can we not employ those foci universally?  Furthermore, project-based learning, critical thinking, and collaboration are fundamentally present in the arts.  It is not something you can add in to arts teaching.  It IS arts teaching, in nearly all formats that arts teaching can take.  

If changing STEM to STEAM calls further attention to arts education, then fantastic.  But it seems to me that there is a much bigger message here, and we are just dressing up fundamental disciplines in a way that is sounds educationally fashionable today, speaking to the what and not the how.