Paul Horton, who teaches history at the University of Chicago Lab School, here ponders a famous remark by David Coleman, architect of the Common Core standards. Coleman said, while giving a speech in New York that was taped, that students need to learn that no one gives a s— about what you think or feel, which was his way of saying that your opinions and feelings matter little in the world, as compared to the ability to write or read a memo or informational text.

He writes:

Perhaps more studies are needed to determine whether there is a similar bundled connection between exposure to narrative stories and creative writing and the development of social and emotional intelligence, empathy, tolerance, and sensitivity to the needs of others. To take things a step further, our codes of ethics, morality, and connection to the spiritual dimensions of experience have always been intertwined with our reading and writing about sacred texts, great poetry, and great literature.

When we marginalize storytelling, literary fiction, and creative writing within K-12 language curricula in favor of nonfiction documents and the construction of analytical memos that might please Pearson Education, McKinsey consulting, and Bill Gates; we risk losing something more important than the ability to construct analytical memos.

To do so would be to risk severing our connection to the rest of humanity, to fall away into the cold, endless, zero gravitational space: the existential reality of the jackhammering of human connection that is the object of uninhibited capitalism.