Opinion: Intel, STEM are not our savior. 'Ohio needs to rediscover its soul'

Jeff Kurtz lives in Newark and teaches at Denison University, where he is professor of communication. 

The heat rising off the Dispatch's Sunday’s Aug. 14 “Conversation” section was hard to miss.

The sobering editorial, “Unwelcomed in Ohio” authored by Opinion Editor Amelia Robinson, and the effusive op-eds celebrating the Silicon Heartland by doctors Ayanna Howard, Frederic Bertley and corporate leaders Chris Berry and Molly Kocour Boyle together managed to burn my eyes at least.

Is Ohio on the cusp of a new era of heightened intolerance and bigotry?

Is the Buckeye State genuinely unwelcoming, even hostile? Will semiconductor technology save our state? Could Intel’s influence really shape the state’s educational landscape for generations?

What really was implied in the “Conversation” section was a critically important question: What is education in Ohio for?

The science and technology commentators believe Intel and its resources promise a new Golden Age. Bertley likened Intel’s investment in STEM education to the Sputnik launch. If our state’s youngsters learn computer science, Berry and Kocour Boyle pleaded, we will “meet this massive moment.”

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Such happy arguments occlude what’s at stake: The chance to have honest conversations about what education in Ohio is actually for.

If Berry and Kocour Boyle are to be believed, computer science will equip students to till the ground from which the Silicon Heartland will spring. Bertley and Howard evince faith in the ways technology and STEM will ensure unprecedented economic growth. But what if STEM education is not enough?

Ohio is in a crucible moment: What kind of state do we want to be?

What kinds of citizens will most ensure we embody the best qualities of that statehood?

Computer science and intimate familiarity with field-effect transistors cannot answer profound questions or solve vexing problems like the polarization between and among us, the heart-staggering infant mortality crisis, or the stark failure of our political systems to model representative democracy.

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STEM education must be deeply complemented by robust, engaging exposure to the humanities, arts, and social sciences at all levels of schooling.

These disciplines, historically concerned with posing questions and seeking answers from which genuine human flourishing might be realized, will equip students with the tools, resources, and capacities to forthrightly assume their responsibilities as citizens, and not mere worker bees who can drop some code.

As the19th century wound down, the abolitionist Frederick Douglass wondered: “Science now tells us when storms are in the sky, and when and where their violence will be most felt. Why may we not yet know with equal certainty when storms are in the moral sky, and how to avoid their desolating force?” The Buckeye State will never reach its full potential if it settles for some chips and a couple of live wires.

We live in complicated times, where the limits of science compel us to admit that some big questions push beyond the lab bench.

The writer and priest Tish Harrison Warren recently captured these: “How does one know what is true and false, right or wrong? Is there a God? If there is, can we interact with him, her or it? What are our obligations to God and to other human beings? How can we have joy? How can we live well? How can we be wise?”

Intel will not help us answer such questions, nor will STEM education. We must expect more and do better where the education of our children is concerned.

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Bertley concluded by quoting a television character. I’ll settle upon a playwright. In "Love’s Labour's Lost," Shakespeare teased, “These Earthly godfathers of Heaven’s lights,/That give a name to every fixed star,/Have no more profit of their shining nights/Than those that walk and know not what they are.”

Ohio needs to rediscover its soul, determine what we want to be and how we will arrive there. Together. Semiconductor chips and STEM alone won’t help us. But maybe books and art and music and a recommitment to the nobility of politics can. It’s time to get to work.

Jeff Kurtz lives in Newark and teaches at Denison University, where he is professor of communication.