the marginalization of artists.

Now Playing: Begin Again by Taylor Swift (take a deep breath in the mirror, he didn't like it when I wore high heels, but I do)

What is 'smart'?

If you ask my friends, I am very smart. My friends tell me that I ooze character and I have such a dry, sarcastic, crass sense of humour. My friends tell me that I'm feisty and opinionated and clever. I'm not afraid to pick fights and sometimes the only way boys win is by picking me up and putting me someplace high up (which people have done on multiple occasions).

According to my literature and English and history teachers, I am also very smart. Even though I'm not the greatest history student everyone knows I can write well. The HOLA of the English department still remembers when I was in year eight and I spoke to him, a chubby little girl to a formidable literary scholar, of my love of literature and my passion for the written word. I have never lost my passion for English or my drive to succeed. Writing for me is pure joy; something words cannot describe. I can't count the number of times I've cried reading a book or writing an essay because I just feel so at home - it's a brief moment of comfort and security in a world in which I feel so out of place. My English teachers have watched my skills grow from the childish rambles of primary school to the academic polemic that I am now capable of, and I owe everything to them. They have helped me polish and refine something that is the core of my existence. There is no doubt in their minds that I am intelligent.

But if you ask my maths or science teachers, my politics and sports teachers, I'm dumb and unmotivated. My work is unintelligent and uninspiring. I ask silly questions and I don't do well. I'm quiet and confused in class and I fidget too much. I lack the mental capacity for greatness, and the motivation to make up for my shortcomings. I don't understand the classics and I lack the 'magic touch'. Everything I do is half-hearted and substandard. I'm polite and well-meaning but I just don't have it. I'm not a smart girl and good luck, because I'm going to need all the luck I can get. They laugh at my ambitions and my hopes for the future. They just think I don't have what it takes to make it big.

So what's with the difference in opinion?

The sad thing is, it's the second school of thought that has the most weight. We live in a world where being good at maths and science isn't just 'being good at maths and science', it's being SMART. And whilst it's a stretch to say that every football player is Einstein, their talents are definitely better valued (and better paid) than mine. In maths I am unintelligent and uninspiring. It takes me a long time to wrap my head around numbers and even when I do and I don't understand what I'm doing or the point in what I'm doing. Every single teacher I have had in these subjects have been vague and pretentious and condescending so in the end I just shut up and give up rather than endure their snarky comments at my 'dumb' questions. I don't give a shit about maths and science, to be honest - and don't use my pacemaker to blackmail me, because a good mark in a high school pop quiz is not exactly making any medical breakthroughs. But I cannot comprehend why people are under this...assumption that people who can smash algebra are better/smarter/more important/more valuable than someone who can write a kick-ass essay. I mean, they're both smart, but who's more important? It's all a matter of opinion.

Our education system marginalizes artists because their contribution to society and to the economy is undervalued - in the same way that gay relationships are marginalized because if their perceived inability to contribute to the population and, again, the economy. But it's a false dichotomy - you can't tell someone's contribution to the state by how their brain is wired. Just a few decades ago blue collar workers were marginalized because manual labour wasn't valued in a society of enlightenment and class hierarchy, but now we live in the era of the millionaire miner and the well to do tradie - and don't tell me that every single plumber on the planet was the dux of his school. Our school values maths and science students on the off chance we'll get another Einstein or Tesla. What they forget is that for every lit student there's an off chance we'll get another Shakespeare or J.K. Rowling, and for every art student there's an off chance we'll get another Monet or Goya. But there's also a good chance in all these fields - art, literature, maths, science, sport - that we'll end up with homeless bums and unemployed over-educated yuppies. We live in this myth that the only degrees worth getting are maths and science degrees when there's no solid evidence - and I know how much science people like solid evidence - that this is somehow the highway to success.

Artists are marginalized in a society that tells us that what we do is not worthwhile, not profitable, meaningless and not 'what smart people do'. It's tough living in a world where all your hard work is dismissed as 'daydreaming' and 'distraction', in a world where you constantly have to doubt your intelligence. I'm not any better than the kid who tops maths and chemistry, but I'm not any worse, either. I'm top in English and I should be on equal ground. But I'm not.