turning STEM into STEAM

Considering this hot topic in education,
this quote made me think.

For some reason, we think that poetry is this thing you do on the side, once you get your math done or your science done. Same thing with writing or any of the things we call “the arts” – there’s this idea that they’re just an elective, they’re just decoration, and they have nothing to do with our survival … or why we can stand to be here.

That’s the reason I’ve made it to 53 – because of finding these things that poetry or painting or place contain. That’s the stuff of mental health, and we ignore it at our peril.

Lynda Barry, brilliant as ever, in an interview about poetry. Pair with other luminaries on how the humanities make us human and E.O. Wilson on whyscience and the arts need one another.

Perhaps Wordsworth was right when he wrote that “poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge.”

via {explore}

photos via {pinterest}