Article published in Longmeadow Neighbors
(July 2023)

I’ve often encountered people who question the point of including the reading of fiction in our educational system. In a typical English class, students read and write about poetry, short stories, and longer forms of fiction, usually without fully understanding why. In fact, ELA and the other arts are treated frequently as unimportant subjects, consistently placed behind math and science.

The fundamental problem with this perspective is that the purpose and benefits of reading and writing fiction go largely unnoticed. So much so, in fact, that when I tell people that math, science, reading, and writing all accomplish the same goal, I’m met with baffled looks. But it’s true: reading and writing accomplish the same goal as math and science. To be more precise, reading and writing achieve what science and math cannot. Let me elaborate.

Humans have an insatiable thirst for knowledge, and one that has undeniably made human civilization the technological hub that it is today. From humankind’s inception, we have constantly sought to understand all that surrounds us, to turn the unfamiliar into the familiar, and to find truth in the unknown. Mathematicians and scientists have observed the natural world and
built equations and theories to try to explain it. But there is more to the world than what the sciences see.

Reading and writing target the universal truths shrouded in the abstract, using philosophy to rationalize the unfathomable. Math has its equations and science has its theories and laws, those things that explain the physical. Storytelling is an act of exploring the metaphysical—what is the self? What is beauty? What makes us virtuous? Vicious? Search for the answers in a mathematical or scientific text and you will never find the answer—but read a page of The
Picture of Dorian Grey, Catcher in the Rye, or Metamorphosis and the answers might grow clearer.

A storyteller weaves their tales to capture things near-ineffable; things requiring the depths of interpretation to uncover; things that beg for a human reader to unpack the complex emotions and messages the story conveys. Behind fictitious narratives is a grain of truth that is massive in consequence and intrinsically valuable. That is why writers write and readers read.

Math and science teach logic and a certain type of critical thinking. They bring chaotic nature to order. These skills are indubitably valuable. But reading meaningful texts (and learning how to write about them) teaches students how to feel, be creative, think for themselves, and find deep meaning amidst the mundane. ELA is not more important than the sciences, but it certainly isn’t less important.

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