Chapter 6 and the appendix of Owens book was mixed bad news bears and a glimmer of hope. Additionally, his last chapter had me reflecting on some ideas that I am still working through. For example, when he mentions Youngblood’s claim that academics can’t specialize in only one thing and truly understand relationships in the environment, I can see where that distrust stems from. Owens explains it further with Dewey’s example of child who feels a great waste in school because he can’t use the experience he gets outside of school and apply it to school, and vice versa. If we push back maybe not even necessarily at specialization, but if we open the doors to listen to others, maybe we can make these relationships clearer. This can lead to those constructivism classes where we help students engage in active inquiry rather than idol participants.
When I look at my own class, I think about all the possibilities that I could teach with. If I could teach, for example, a class full of CMT students, we could work with their CMT capstone class and create some awesome technical writing and research based on their big projects. This cross-collaboration is something I am always interested in. One of the aspects that really draws me to smaller schools, is that there tends to be a bit more freedom and room for innovation to try these ideas. At schools like OSU, I am not sure if we could get this idea off the ground and running because of the all the extra steps that are required here.
Even though in my idealist, rose-colored dream job of co-teaching classes or linking classes together, I don’t think this is such a far-fetched idea. I have been seeing this trend in ivy league schools, and I think it will take a lot of work, but maybe R2 and R3 schools will also get the hang of it.
Now for the sad news.
Okay, Owen’s first appendix kills me. And for the sake of my mental sanity, I don’t want to spend too much time here. But, I also want to push back at some of his claims (and agree with others). The vanishing resources, yep, I completely agree that our food and agriculture in general is quickly diminishing, and the thought that in 2050, half of the people on the planet will not have enough water, is super frightening.
For the population growth, I think we might actually see a decrease? …which could quickly turn into a Handmaid’s Tale-esque story, but let’s not go there! This might be a gross overstatement and only apply to more of the Western countries, but in the United States, birth rate is declining for a multitude of reasons. Firstly, women who are in childbearing years, are either postponing to have children or choosing not to have children. The CDC reported that in 2016, this was the lowest rate of women having children than ever recorded. Even with China removing it’s one-child policy, women are still choosing to not hav children (Fincher, 2018).
If you look at the demographic of our class, not many of us really want to have biological children. Teen pregnancy is dropping (which I think honestly has a lot to do with free access to birth control…who would have guessed?!). But something else (and more sinister) is at play. Fertility, especially in the United States is dropping. This is becoming a phenomenon in countries like France and Japan as well. This is a more sensitive subject, and I know several women who struggle with fertility, so instead of imposing my views, I will just link to an article that discusses how women are having less children than they want/intend to.
Owens then goes on to talk about mass extinctions. If you go to any history museum, you will quickly learn we are currently in one. Additionally, you will hear about the rise of pollution and environmental injustices. Living in a state that denies fracking causes any issues, is insane to me. It is probably one of my biggest frustrations about living in Oklahoma. I try to keep up with the research (on both ends) on the debate of fracking, but it keeps ending with the point “yeah, guys, we probably should stop this” but legislature seems slow to embrace that idea. This probably goes back to Alysse’s idea of the vilifying science with “fake news” and such.
But, I am still hopefully that these issues will turn around. Because if we’re not hopeful and if we don’t try, what else can we do?
References:
Hong Fincher, L. (2018 Feb 20). China dropped it one-child policy. So why aren’t Chinese women having more babies? The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/20/opinion/china-women-birthrate-rights.html
Owens, D. (2001). Composition and sustainability: Teaching for a threatened generation. National Council of Teachers of English, Urbana, IL.
Stone, L. (2018 Feb 13). American women are having fewer children than they would like. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/13/upshot/american-fertility-is-falling-short-of-what-women-want.html
Katie Rieger, Portfolio 
Your title is hilarious. Yes, we need to reconcile projections and scientific evidence with hope and optimism. We need to create a theoretical framework that enables us to reconstruct our environments, understanding who we are as a body of people that make up a community (which involves listening). I do think higher ed is important in creating a sustainable framework for people but those of us in higher ed need to work together and restructure to do this.
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