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As a student with a variety of academic interests, ranging from theater to writing to, of course, the study of science, it kills me when my I hear my friends and fellow classmates, from Bryn Mawr and high school alike, tell me that they are just not “science people.” What an outrageous label, “science person.” Everyone is a science person; as Greene discusses in his article, humans naturally tend towards inquiry, and inquiry, the backbone of science, is integral to so many other facets of our academic worlds, from philosophy to the analysis of literature.

The mistake that so many science teachers make, as I see it, is that they dull science down and make it an uninspiring topic, focusing for too long on the definitions and ignoring the real-world applications (applications that propel all human beings to strive for understanding of nature and their environment from childhood onward) of the laws and equations they teach. The dogmatic approach of so many science teachers and academic bureaucracies that decide on curricula, to endlessly lecture and test students in a way that encourages many not to relate to science but simply to memorize facts in order to attain a grade, is to blame for my peers who are convinced that they are not capable of understanding scientific fields, or even worse, simply dislike the subject as a whole. If educators want students to enjoy and understand science, to make the connection between chemical compounds and the inner workings of a star, they must look at what peaks student interest in other academic fields— discussion-based classes, real-life examples, and a sense of intelligence on topics that is fostered not by a red percentage on an exam but by the inner pursuit for knowledge that comes with a positive learning environment.