For the past decade, the number of people majoring in English has declined, while STEM fields are booming.
Yet economists say that English majors are needed to tell the stories, shape narratives that make sense to people.
A great migration is happening on U.S. college campuses. Ever since the fall of 2008, a lot of students have walked out of English and humanities lectures and into STEM classes, especially computer science and engineering.
English majors are down more than a quarter (25.5 percent) since the Great Recession, according to data compiled by the National Center for Education Statistics. It’s the biggest drop for any major tracked by the center in its annual data and is quite startling, given that college enrollment has jumped in the past decade…
Nobel Prize winner Robert Shiller’s new book “Narrative Economics” opens with him reminiscing about an enlightening history class he took as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan. He wrote that what he learned about the Great Depression was far more useful in understanding the period of economic and financial turmoil than anything he learned in his economic courses.
The whole premise of Shiller’s book is that stories matter. What people tell each other can have profound implications on markets — and the overall economy. Examples include the “get rich quick” stories about bitcoin or the “anyone can be a homeowner” stories that helped drive the housing bubble…
In many ways, President Trump’s constant attempts to call this the greatest economy of all time are an effort to tell a positive story to encourage Americans to keep spending, Shiller said, even if his claim is not based in fact.…
What matters most is the ability to communicate clearly, a skill that English majors are likely to acquire.
Perhaps the most powerful argument for why students (and their parents) might want to think twice about abandoning humanities is the data. The National Center for Education Statistics also keeps track of pay and unemployment rates by major.
There’s no denying that the typical computer science major makes more money shortly after graduation than the typical English major.
Contrary to popular belief, English majors ages 25 to 29 had a lower unemployment rate in 2017 than math and computer science majors.
That early STEM pay premium also fades quickly, according to research by David J. Deming and Kadeem L. Noray from Harvard. After about a decade, STEM majors start exiting their job fields as their skills are no longer the latest and greatest. In contrast, many humanities majors work their way to high-earning management positions. By middle age, average pay looks very similar across many majors.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
My husband and I both have notice syntax, and word choice errors in WRITING as well as in Math inside book jackets, and even articles in magazines and newspapers, also in also professional journals.
Are only spell-checkers and grammar checkers used or are the editors just lame? I don’t know.
Thank for this post, Diane.
OOPs…see I just made a spell check error … should have written THANKS. I hate spell checkers.
Part of the decline in English majors, I suspect, is that fewer young people are deciding to become English teachers in the era of Deform-driven micromanagement, high-stakes standardized testing, VAM, school grading, and low pay. And then many students have swallowed the notion that they had better study something VERY clearly marketable in the business or vocational world if they are going to survive with their huge student loans in a world in which the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
But yes, stories matter. Consider, for example, this: Donald Trump told the nation a story, that he started out with very little (“a small loan from my father”) and built a multi-billion-dollar fortune and that he was going to use his unparalleled skills as a businessman to make American great again for the forgotten people, the ones left behind. All lies, but stories are, indeed, effective, for good and ill, despite what Lord Coleman, appointed by Bill Gates the decider for the rest of us, seems to think.
Storytelling is the basis a) of our theories of other minds, of what makes others tick; b) of memory, which is largely reconstruction; c) of dreaming; d) of the sense we make of the world; e) for what we buy and how we vote; f) of strategic planning by businesses, governments, and advocacy organizations; and g) OF OUR VERY IDENTITIES, which are stories we tell ourselves about who we are: https://bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/2018/11/30/what-makes-humans-human/
Yeah, understanding stories and how they work is EXTREMELY valuable. Let me tell you why:
There once were three brothers, . . .
I am not enchanted with the idea that economists have superior wisdom about education, especially if the main value of education is reduced to economic payoff or superior wisdom about the economy.
If “narrative economists” are saying that studies in English, are a good investment, why not consider more than one language as a better choice for agility in a global economy.
The article in the Washington Post combines some statistics on college majors, noting a decline in the humanities and uptick in STEM fields. The most prominent economist featured in this post, who appears to be opining about education, is Robert Shiller, author of several editions of “Irrational Exuberance” and his hot off the press: “Narrative Economics: How Stories Go Viral and Drive Major Economic Events,” Princeton University Press (October 1, 2019).
When asked if he’s essentially arguing for more English and history majors, Shiller said, “I think so,” adding: “Compartmentalization of intellectual life is bad.” It is not clear who asked the question, but Shiller’s interests (and key ideas in his new book) can be discerned in his Presidential address delivered at the 129th annual meeting of the American Economic Association, January 7, 2017, Chicago, IL. His address begins this way: “By narrative economics I mean the study of the spread and dynamics of popular narratives, the stories, particularly those of human interest and emotion, and how these change through time, to understand economic fluctuations.” https://www.nber.org/papers/w23075.pdf
Narrative economists might learn a thing or two from a little book called Metaphors We Live By. It was written by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (1980, University of Chicago Press). It is not mentioned in Shiller’s paper. George Lakoff, emeritus professor of cognitive science and linguistics at UC Berkeley, also wrote “Don’t Think of an Elephant!” (2004), a useful book about how conservatives frame their political appeals. A brief introduction to George Lakoff’s thinking about language and imagery in politics is here. https://medium.com/@ennuid/george-lakoffs-framing-101-7b88e9c91dac
Lakoff is still at it, if Democrats would pay attention. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-ol-patt-morrison-george-lakoff-20181128-htmlstory.html . Lakoff is among others who inspired the Metaphor Project https://metaphorproject.org/american-political-framing/why-metaphor
In other word, narrative economics seems to make headlines because there is a pervasive view of economics that ignores how the field is shaped by and relies on rhetoric, imagery, and metaphors designed to frame how we feel not how we think. Bingo, but not big news beyond studies in economics.
Readers of this blog should be aware of The Frameworks Institute “an independent nonprofit research organization founded in 1999 to improve the non-governmental sector’s communications capacity by identifying, translating, and modeling relevant scholarly research for framing public discourse about social problems.”
The MacArthur Foundation is a major funder of the Frameworks Institute. Writers and researchers for the institute use various techniques to determine issues in “messaging” about topics of interest to clients. The Institute then offers clients talking points, videos, model letters to the editor, website FAQs, simple games, and the like. Among their investigative tools are interviews, media content analyses, experimental surveys, and focus groups. All of this sounds much like the work of a for-profit public relations firm.
The Frameworks website has an extensive record of its work on major issues, including education. There is a “Core Story of K-12 Education,” and these subtopics: System and System Reforms, K-12 Skills and Learning, K-12 Assessment, K-12 Out of School Learning, K-12 Equity and Disparities, and K-12 Teacher Quality and Teacher Unions. Additional topics include STEM Learning, Digital Media and Learning, Higher Education, Budgets and more.
Funders of specific topics in education vary but include the following in addition to The MacArthur Foundation: Nellie Mae, Ford, Hewlett, Mott, Kellogg, NoVo, Raikes, Lumina, Noyce, and W. K. Kellogg Foundation. Others are among 300 “Partners and Funders.” The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching supported messaging on behalf of education based on “Improvement Science.” The Nellie Mae and Lumina Foundations supported messaging about education reform and research on cultural models of schooling.
I took some time to look at the “Digital Media and Learning initiative,” funded from 2004 to 2017. This initiative follows a template for venture funding, beginning with a start-up (Connected Learning), scaling and tweaking it (Cities of Learning) then a proof of concept serving as a basis for further investments (Collective Shift)
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The Connected Learning initiative began with informal learning experiments in out of school and in non-school institutions (e.g., libraries, museums) with students connected to these opportunities by the internet and mobile devices.
The “Cities of Learning” project scaled up these initial experiments in multiple cities and included a “test” of digital badges as an online way to assess learning and house credentials for learning acquired in formal and informal settings.
The MacArthur Foundation then set up Collective Shift, a new non-profit organization intended to “attract a more diverse set of partners and investors, explore alternative funding models and mechanisms, and accommodate a more entrepreneurial and innovative approach to philanthropy” and to expand adoption of “the principles, practices, and products of Connected Learning.”
This investment, at $25 million in seed money, included a platform for securing digital badges called LRNG. LRNG is now fully merged with the private, for-profit Southern New Hampshire University with about 90,000 on-line students in addition to several thousand on campus.
https://www.macfound.org/press/press-releases/macarthur-spins-digital-media-learning-work-25-million-seed-investment/
I’d guess that many candidates for political office are perfecting their “messaging” and with at least some of the toolkits and specific suggestions from Frameworks.
My son, Mike, is 50 years old. He went to public school, and is the CEO of his own software company because— upon graduating college with a degree in a humanities (English, history, and art.) he decided to do what he loved — and he loved coding!
He was 13 (his first computer was aTRS 80) when he learned the language of computers. AT the PUBLIC HS school that he attended, he took college level (honors level) courses in coding. In college he minored in business — while he studied English! Gee, how will he ever make money?
Erudite and well spoken, his first job was at a huge bank in their investment department (because he could READ everything out there– and he could make recommendations based on his knowledge, that paid off big!) He could have remained, but he hated that world, so he bought a huge server, and created a computer Spacelab– business with 3 high school friends.
The father of one of my students at that time was the president a local college, and he called me to say, that MIke had made a presentation to him, and he was stunned at his language ability. I guess all the English courses served him well. At 28 he sold his business for 4 million dollars, and each of the guys took half a million; he paid back all the loans that he had taken out, to start the next business!
The first savings and loan grand theft, came just as he opened ID Vault, and thus, although he had customers waiting — (Boeing was one). — he lost everything.
Sooo, he used his wonderful skills in speaking and writing and worked for a huge tech company for a big salary and gained experience in security software. Then, using open source software, he moved to Texas and he opened up his own security software business Gluu! https://www.gluu.org/company/our-story/
This year he wrote a book, and he is a published author, and I am not! LOL.
English is a useful!
Also this year he took his kids, my grandkids around the world on his business trip in order to visit the many businesses that use the Gluu server. he lectured about open source around the world… so glad he can SPEAK so well!
ALSO Using his ENGLISH skills — he interviewed the CEO’s of the companies who also use open-source software — as he did– to create thriving businesses.-
Here is episode one… and you can hear MY BOY, who took a humanities degree https://opensourceunderdogs.com/episode-1-anaconda-python-data-science-platform-with-peter-wang/
Here are the rest of his episodes https://opensourceunderdogs.com/episodes/
In my next comment, I will tell you about his daughter,Zia, home-schooled in a coop.
How did she learn English? By using it. I promise you will be in for a surprise!
Dear friends and colleagues— this is not short, but I promise you… it is worth reading and going to the links, because it demonstrates how ENGLISH can be enabled and facilitated, and what LEARNING Looks Like!
Zia, my grandchild, did not return to Austin HS, where she had been in her freshman year, before she left, her first an only year in Public school after her childhood in a home-school coop. While on the trip, she did a curriculum online, as her parents watched, and thus, she continued with her math and science while traveling with her family around the world for a year.
OMG how will she ever pass th SATs and get into college? This is what people say to me!!
Instead of returning to Austin HS, where she had completed her freshman year— she is going to a local community college because she needs genuine skills in writing. She already has a speaking skill and a working vocabulary that comes from speaking Shakespeare’s lines, since she was 7 in the astonishing theater that her mom, Andee Kinzy created for the Austin kids in her home school coop. Yes my grandkids were ‘home-schooled!.
While on the world trip with my son Mike, Zia and grandson, Brant, continued with immersion in Shakespeare, as her mother did her Global Hamlet project/film. ” Peppering Shakespeare’s original text with modern narration and performed by a Company of youth Players ranging from 3rd-12th grade, her adaptations are geared towards school-aged youth (or anyone else) who can benefit from a shorter introduction to Shakespeare’s plays.”
Here is Andee Kinzy’s Global Hamlet Project, which she made into a film which was shown in Austin. https://www.youtube.com/user/improvEdshakespeare
Andee produced a scene from the bard’s work in EVERY COUNTRY THAT they visited. Here is an earlier introduction, but you get to see hear my daughter in law, Mike’s wife, Andee. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aq7yRhcP9v0 H
And, here, dear colleagues and readers is my granddaughter, Zia, and her 13 year old brother Brant, in London, introducing “Hamlet” as part of their mother’s theater project! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylCBfft2OkI#action=share.
You might want to note the clarity in speaking ENGLISH. … and remember they were in a home-school cooperative and not public school. Here in one clip is Zia (age 13) playing the male role of Petruccio, in “Taming of the Shrew”
She played Hamlet, when she was 11, and , at age 9, she played Prosper-a, in “The Tempest,” on a stage behind a restaurant!
AND If you will indulge me, one more moment — my grandson Brant is only 8 years old in this clip, as he speaks his lines to Perdida, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajl0C1ZrI5U I cried, just now, when I got to marker 30:52/40:46… and listened to him. When he came home from the trip, he was taller than me, and that child’s voice was GONE.
The plays Andee did with the kids, were presented in Austin’s Scottish Rites theater, but Andee took “A Winter’s Tale” outside to film. If you decide to watch the whole thing you will see the kids in the coop!
They had so much fun, and learned not only to speak and read, but to cooperate with each other—huge social skills
Can you imagine if kids in publics school had such a program?
If you want to learn something, to ride a bike for example..you’ve to get on the bike. Practice makes playing an instrument possible. If you wanna speak English….
And BTW — I was Brant’s 7th grade ENGLISH teacher while he was on the world trip, and I was here in Suffern, New York!
He wrote my assignments— “Reader’s Letters,” at Google docs— but we talked about the books he read (for me, and on his own) when we conferenced on Facebook and Telegram — about his writing assignments, as he learned TO DO THE PROCESS: 1- Get the thought/idea! 2 – Get it down! just write— draft! and then 3-GET IT READT FOR the reader… EDITING several drafts to produce the final product. We laugh at together, when we peruse his sixth grade writing (when he started 7th grade with his Nana Sue); he is so proud that he writes easily and well, now!
Online learning can work, but it requires a TEACHER’s interaction and AUTHENTIC EVALUATION of the LEARNING!
I have his September ‘Reader’s Letters’ to me a ‘digital portfolio’ so to speak… — all his drafts, as well as his final, June letters, and the story which he wrote for me… ( Lordy — the protagonist, a young girl, dies in the end, trying to escape in a tunnel from her Nazi grandfather!)
Brant was in Germany at that time, and visiting all the holocaust museums, and I had him read,” Night” and “The Book Thief.
BTW — my Reader’s Letter’s curriculum ( based on an idea by Nancy Atwell) was the one that brought Harvard to my classroom, when my NYC practice was the Pew cohort for the New Standard’s research — because my students had the highest writing scores in NYC ELA tests — when 2/3 of NYC kids failed!
“How did you do it” Pew asked, and then watched me do it, for 2 years!
Of course, in 1998 I was in a rubber room fighting for my pension and benefits, and my career as the WAR ON TEACHERS began the demolition of Public Education.
I was the NYS Educator of Excellence, because of that letter-writing program, and I was curious to see, if I could do it long distance… and I do mean Loooong! Brant was in South Africa, Israel, Australia, new Zealand, Singapore, Japan, India, Sweden and more! His letters were also a travelogue… “Travels with Brant”
I know. I know… it is not just school that gives children the skills they need… Zia is lucky… great parents, and FYI— she is writing a script at present (no surprise after LEARNING IN THEATER ARTS… and we are sharing it online… so the internet, used properly is something wonderful.
BYE!