When I was younger, I wanted to work in government or international relations. Why? Because I was involved in extracurriculars like debate, Model UN, and mock trial. Those activities shaped me into a student who loved history and literature. These subjects taught me how to think critically, communicate clearly in person and on paper and understand the world through people and ideas. Then I started learning about space. It was fascinating. Space became my entry point into science, and as I moved through courses like biology and chemistry, I started to notice something strange. People reacted to my subjects very differently depending on what I was studying. When I talked about my English or history classes, I would usually hear things like, “I’m glad I don’t have to write essays anymore,” or “I never need to remember those war dates now.” But when I talked about science or math, the response was usually, “Oh, you must be smart.” That always bothered me. Why was I only considered smart if I was good at science or math? Why wasn’t it equally impressive to write a powerful essay or explain the causes and consequences of the War of 1812? Why had we, as a society, decided that intelligence only counts when it comes in the form of equations and labs?
As I got further into my math and science courses, I realized I respected them, but I did not have the passion for them in the same way I did history and English. Still, I kept noticing the same pattern I had seen years before: the hierarchy of science, technology, engineering and math is everywhere. If you imagine the “smartest person in the world,” chances are you picture a scientist. That is not an insult to scientists. Scientists are extraordinary. They make discoveries and solve problems every day. But acknowledging their brilliance should not require us to diminish every other form of intelligence. This issue became especially clear to me in two moments. The first was when my psychology professor talked about how terrible many scientists are at writing.
Historically, many scientists publish papers about their work that are hard to read and understand because of their lack of skill in communicating them clearly. Their discoveries matter, but if they cannot explain them well, their impact becomes limited.
The second moment is the one we are living through right now: a literacy crisis. People are reading less. People are writing less. And the repercussions are showing everywhere. Yes, phones are part of the problem. There is a correlation between increased screen time and declining literacy rates. But I think we often ignore another major factor: the values we push as a society. We still send a very clear message about what kinds of knowledge matter most. And in America, that message increasingly favors STEM above all else. The problem is not science, technology, engineering or math themselves. The problem is the belief that those fields represent the only serious or valuable kind of intelligence. As a result, we have slowly stopped valuing reading and writing at the level we should.
Reading is not just about textbooks or memorizing information. We read novels, memoirs, classics and coming-of-age stories in school because they teach us how to think. Books like “To Kill a Mockingbird” or “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” are not important because they are practical in the way a formula is practical. They matter because they help us understand people, emotions, injustice, identity and ourselves. That kind of understanding is intelligence, too.
Literature teaches nuance. Writing teaches clarity. History teaches perspective. These are not extra skills. They are foundational to being an informed, thoughtful and emotionally intelligent person. And without reading, what happens to writing? We barely write in full sentences anymore. Our communication is reduced to abbreviations, left-off sentences and reaction images. While casual texting itself is not the enemy, the decline in meaningful writing is affecting how well we express ourselves. If we cannot clearly explain our thoughts at a basic level, then we are losing something essential.
Again, STEM itself is not the problem. The danger is in the way our culture has elevated it into the highest and most respected form of intelligence, while treating the humanities as almost optional, or even useless. This mindset is damaging, not just to schools and grades, but to society as a whole. Knowledge is power. But only valuing one kind of knowledge limits how powerful we can truly be. If we want a smarter society, we should not only be raising better scientists. We should also be raising better readers, better writers, better thinkers and better communicators.
Because intelligence has never belonged to just one subject.
