1)The immediate context of this essay, “Necessary Edges: Arts, Empathy, and Education”: Yo-Yo Ma is the author of this essay, and it was published by a website called the World Post in January of 2014. I noticed in Yo-Yo Ma’s bio that he started performing at the young age of five years old and also that he has won many awards. The bio states that he won over seventeen Grammy’s and numerous other awards. I also noticed that he graduated from two prestigious schools, The Julliard School and Harvard University.
2)The imposed context, including why I am reading this, is to learn about Yo-Yo Ma’s ideas of STEAM education and to form my own opinions on an important topic. I personally believe strongly in the arts as I grew up in dance doing ballet which I believe lead me to be more outgoing and lead me to want to pursue a doctorate in physical therapy. I believe arts are very impactful in sciences and mathematics because for me, arts gave me the opportunity to broaden my horizon and be more well-rounded.
3)The internal context of this text was the explaining of different ways that integrating more arts into educational systems will be helpful. One way that was talked about was that Yo-Yo Ma believed that in the world we live in today, it is important to have the skills of “collaboration, flexibility, imagination, and innovation” and that art is a good way to teach those skills. He also talked about art helping students become more empathetic. This is because Yo-Yo Ma believes that art helps develop connection between everyone and a better awareness of this connection.
4) Bandwidth- The range of frequencies between a band.
Genome- The complete set of genes in a cell.
Lemmings- A rodent.
