The immediate context for the essay “Necessary Edges: Arts, Empathy, and Education,” was originally published on the World Post in January 2014. The author of the essay is Yo-Yo Ma, who is a cellist and a songwriter. Ma began his journey at the age of five and has won over seventeen Grammy Awards. He has also received multiple other awards as he has produced more than ninety albums. Ma is also a graduate of Juilliard School and Harvard University.

The imposed context that surround my personal experience with the essay is that I realized living in America, that a STEM education has been pushed on me, without even knowing that a STEAM education exists. After reading, I understand that a STEAM education is very important, as it opens up the minds capacity to innovate. With integrating art into the education system it builds flexible thinking and disciplined imagination. With having art in the education system, it teaches, “that there is something that connects us all and is bigger than each of us” (Ma 259). With having a STEAM education it will help aid with students passion to attend school instead of having a despising mindset because it is required. The purpose of this text is to also gain a better understanding on art itself and how it plays a huge part in our everyday lives and when it comes to schooling to be a well rounded student. Last, the texts is important because we learn about the teachings of empathy and how having empathy is essential to be a better person.

For the internal context, the rhetorical situation for this essay is that art is being taken away from education and art plays a huge role in teaching kids empathy. The scope is that the whole education system itself. The changes being made are wrong and we should really be incorporating art more. The “so what,” the point of this essay is that art is important in an education system, more than we might think. Art helps create a balance, “Only when science and the arts, critical and empathetic reasoning, are linked to the mainstream will we find a sustainable balance in society” (Ma 260).

Tandem: having two things arranged one in front of the other (Google)

Bandwidth: the energy or mental capacity required to deal with a situation (Google)

Lemmings: a person who unthinkingly joins a mass movement, especially a headlong rush to destruction (Google)