Liberal Arts Nerd and Proud: Why the humanities are just as good as math and science

During the Sunday podcast on Blerd parenting, I said something that I knew would be controversial. (And I’m not talking about the bit about nerds not being extroverts. I get it. We can be social butterflies too. Slap on the wrist accepted.) I’m talking about the part when I said coding should NOT be a mandatory class in school systems. And my argument goes beyond the questionable practicality of adding yet another mandatory course in age of No Child Left Behind, when teachers are already struggling with the flood of subject matter they have to teach and that children must master in order to meet test score requirements. No, it’s more than that. I argued that if art and music are increasingly no longer prerequisite courses in schools, why should coding become mandatory? Yes, it's just one extra school course, but to me, it speaks of a larger issue.

First, let me preface this by saying that I fully support organizations like Code.org and Black Girls Code. I’ve encouraged others to donate and spread the word about these organizations. I’m fully in support of any cause that encourages more minorities and women to participate in the math and sciences. I don't have my head stuck in the sand. I know the realities we face, and why some believe that minority school children and girls should get involved in technology and sciences early on in life. Traditionally, we have been underrepresented in these areas, and in a modern age that is largely ruled by science and technological advancements, those who don't have any of those skill sets can get left behind. 

When she gets older, my husband and I plan to encourage our now infant daughter to get involved in both science and math — if that’s where her passions lie. But that’s where I will stop: I'll ENCOURAGE, but I won't be ramming it into her head, "You need to learn this and you will do well at it if you want to compete!" This is due to a multitude of reasons, but it is mostly rooted in something that has always annoyed me: the higher status that science and technology have in our society over the liberal arts. Many people would love to be the next Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, or Mark Zuckerberg, but very few aspire to be the next Voltaire or William Shakespeare. (I mean... do you know how hard it is to write an entire play in iambic pentameter?!?! That guy had to have crazy skills!) 

If you learn how to program the next iPhone app that's downloaded thousands of times that could make you bundles of money, that's wonderful. But who the hell cares if you know the proper way to write an essay or compose a concerto? And the big selling point I've continually heard for learning to write and read music: it can help make you better at math. (*side eye)

University professors have lamented for years about how the humanities increasingly have been treated like the ugly stepchildren of academia. Why? From my perspective, because of the following:

1.  They are viewed as less specialized (Oh, girl, ANYBODYcan write!);
2.  They don't have the same monetary value as technology (compare how much a computer programmer makes vs. an English teacher, compare how much you pay for a book vs. a software program); and
3. The concrete correlation between good vs. bad results do not exist in the liberal arts as it does in science, math, and technology. (You can test a hypothesis or run a program to see if it works, but bad writing or a poorly constructed philosophical argument is a lot harder to identify, or so many would believe.)

And this is all from the perspective of someone who has dabbled in both the sciences and liberal arts. 

I was the blerd in school who won the award for the highest score in honors geometry, who was taking calculus by her senior year of high school, and who once created web pages with HTML programming just for fun. I saw the awe that it inspired in others when I told them that I was studying engineering and computer science. I also experienced ambivalence and, in some cases, derision, when I told people I was switching to journalism with a minor in history. 

"Guess you weren't as smart as you thought you were... Guess you couldn't hack it after all," some responded. 

What makes this guy...

...better than this guy?

Yes, as it turns out my talent ultimately didn't lie in the math and sciences, which wasn't a bad thing. I love writing, history, and culture, and that was what I wanted to pursue. But judging from the response of those around me, you would think I was declaring I wanted to study unicycling — meaning, they saw journalism and history as fun pursuits, but ultimately a waste of time. I even remember sitting in my comp sci class once, listening to one student talk about how he considered his business writing class — that he was failing, I might add — pointless.

 

"Who the hell cares about business writing?" he had said. His friend had nodded in agreement.

And this, ladies and gents, is what really pisses me off. I care! And I think we all should if we're so concerned about having future generations that can compete on the world stage. Because not only will excelling require for kids to know physics, chemistry, and yes, even coding, they also should know the difference between an adjective and an adverb. (How the hell are they going to learn foreign languages like Spanish, Japanese or Mandarin if they don't understand the intricacies of their native tongue?) They should know that any proper essay should have an intro, body, nut graph, and conclusion. They should know that any adequate debate should have a point of statis or you're going to get stuck in cyclical arguments. (Watching the craziness on average talk show or political "debate" is a good testimony to the importance of the statis theory.)

Learning is more than just pursuing knowledge with the goal of achieving an MD or Ph.D., or earning a lot of money. It's about self discovery, exploration of the unknown, and testing mental dexterity, and frankly people, science and technology ain't the only game in town! Now, am I putting down the rigors that are involved in learning science and math? Oh, no! Much respect to those who excel in those areas. But simultaneously, I ask that the liberal arts not be considered any less worthy of a pursuit. So if we’re going to make classes like coding mandatory, make art and music mandatory too. Make our children well rounded and competitive in the true sense. But by making one mandatory and the others not, you're sending a clear message to future generations: math and science are way more important that those squishy subjects in the humanities like art and music.

So what happens when you're a girl like me who finds out you're a much better writer than you'll ever be a scientist/engineer? What happened when I embraced the "squishy"? I found my own niche. In addition to writing salacious women’s fiction novels (LOL), I also edit and report for science publications. My job is to take the wonderful research conducted by scientists and the field studies and pilot-scale experiments conducted by engineers, and translate it into something an average person can read. Because though quite a few researchers may be absolutely brilliant, some couldn’t write a damn Hallmark card. (Uh-huh! Laugh at that, dude who turned his nose up at his business writing class!)

- Black Girl Nerd contributor, Shelly Ellis