Victoria P. Hankey and Dawn L.

Ryan, Column Editors

Continuous Becoming: Moving toward Mastery

A Master Teachers Responsibility to the Future
William H. Billings Methodist University Fayetteville, North Carolina billings@methodist.edu

Since the dawn of the third millennium, many of Americas leading scientists and futurists have produced a wave of articles containing predictions about the future, some good and some bad. Whether these predictions come true will depend largely on the millennials those born since 1982 and the teachers thereof. One important responsibility of teachers of millennials is to think beyond the present. Master teachers must engage students in thinking, acting on, and planning for their futures, which have yet to be dened. The following is a sampling of some future probabilities described in these articles: Urban and environmental pressures will drive people from suburbia and the country back to urban cores. A sharp decline in oil supplies will trigger a sudden economic collapse. Smart drugs will shave years off the human brains age.

Telecommuting will allow employees to work from home on their own schedules. Self- driving cars and robo- cabs (available on demand) will replace owner- driven vehicles. Bicycles will be used widely for short trips. Private entrepreneurs in America will routinely conduct manned spaceights to the International Space Station and to other planets. Americans will achieve a kind of immortality as it becomes feasible to upload human minds into supercomputers. (Anft, Carlson, Dudley, and Manjoo, 61) Many scientists and futurists believe that we earthlings must change the way we live, or Earth will not survive. Just as novelists, poets, playwrights, and short- story writers have addressed life and death issues in the past, todays futurists are addressing issues that they believe threaten the survival of the human race and our planet, such as global warming, political terrorism, overpopulation, nuclear proliferation, and air and water pollution. In their efforts to improve the odds of our planet surviving, master teachers should challenge todays students to change their way of living and believe that they can be part of a future solution.

To ensure the likelihood that millennials make good choices and help build a better world, En glish teachers should focus attention on the critical issues that lie ahead. One method is to require students to read what experts are predicting for the future and then create their own future autobiographies.
En glish teachers should focus attention on the critical issues that lie ahead.

In 1970, Alvin Tofer proposed in his book, Future Shock, that students at all grade levels, elementary through college, be required to picture themselves and important others in their lives as they would be 10 or 20 years into the future. Tofer said this activity was needed to avoid future shock, which he dened as the shattering stress and disorientation that we induce in individuals by subjecting them to too much change in too short a time (2). By submitting these to class discussion, he added, by comparing different assumptions in them, contradictions in the childs own projections can be identied and examined (426). Tofer decried the fact that science ction was generally held in low regard as a branch of literature and said it should be viewed

94

Eng lish Journal 103.3 (2014): 94 97

Copyright 2014 by the National Council of Teachers of English. All rights reserved.

Continuous Becoming: Moving toward Mastery

as a kind of sociology of the future. Our children should be studying Arthur C. Clarke, William Tenn, Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, and Robert Sheckley, he noted. They [these writers] can lead young minds through an imaginative exploration of the jungle of political, social, psychological, and ethical issues that will confront these children as adults (Tofer 425). In an effort to facilitate thinking about the future, I designed the following project. After reading Future Shock, I asked my eighth- grade En glish students in Chestereld County, Virginia, to write future autobiographies, to imagine and describe two days in their future: one day set 10 years ahead and the other day set 20 years out. To prepare the students for this task, I gave them a Ray Bradbury short story and an excerpt from a modern autobiography that we read and discussed. The future autobiographies penned by these students were a revelation, exposing the students dreams and personal values and generating optimism about their future prospects. Over the last 40 years, I have given the same assignment to hundreds of En glish students, ninth graders through rst- year college students, with similar results. In the fall of 2000, I decided to again test Tofers idea by asking my rst- year college En glish composition students to write future autobiographies in lieu of end- of- course research papers. I designed this project to have three components. First, the students would read and react to 14 articles about the future, as well as Harrison Bergeron, a short story by Kurt Vonnegut. Second, the students

would write rst- person, journal- style narratives describing three days in their own futures set 20, 40, and 60 years hence. Third, students were given a two- page set of instructions (see

Figure 1), 14 articles about the future, the Vonnegut short story, and a sample future autobiography written by a college student. The edgling authors were told to craft a discernible plot and theme

FIGUre 1. Future Autobiography Paper: 9 12 pages (1,8002,400 words) Your task for this paper will be to speculate about and place yourself in the future, giving your best- case scenario for what your world will look like 20, 40, and 60 years from now, on a specic day in 2034, 2054, and 2074. Although you will have to use your imagination when writing your future autobiography, your paper must include some of the predictions for the future now being advanced by experts in various elds. I will give you 14 articles about the future, and you must nd six additional articles on your own. You must cite at least 15 articles about the future in this paper (ve or more within each day you describe). Use parenthetical MLA style when quoting from or paraphrasing articles. Each part of your paper will be a journal or diary entry for one day in your future. Start with the time you wake up and end with the time you go to bed. Strive for a unifying theme or central impression for each day you describe, reecting on the signicance of the things that happened to you during that day. As you review each day, mention: 1. Your age and where you live 2. Your family and close friends: people you meet or work with regularly 3. Your job or educational status 4. Your appearance and style of dress 5. Your favorite sports, hobbies, or recreational activities 6. A TV newscast or front page of a daily newspaper giving the state of the world and the country and the area in which you live: the economy, political situation, environment, health and scientic advances, war vs. peace, etc. 7. The greatest obstacle or challenge you face; how religion or prayer helps you cope with lifes challenges 8. Some accomplishments youre proud of; your dreams and goals for the immediate future Use subheads at the beginning of each part of your future autobiography, giving the month, day, and year, followed by a colon (:) and a descriptive phrase that sums up what type of event(s) you have imagined for yourself. Example: January 30, 2034: Family Greets New Arrival. You may describe any day of any month in 2034, 2054, and 2074. In the past, many students have chosen their birthdays for each of the future years they describe; this seems logical because birthdays often force us to think about where weve been and where were going. Give your paper an original title. You will conclude your paper by writing your own one- page obituary, giving the basic details of your life (see the example paper), or you may write some thoughts about life to be read at your wake or memorial service OR you may write a nal letter to your surviving family members. Immediately after your obituary or nal thoughts, attach a Works Cited page, listing the bibliographic information on all the articles that you cited or used as background information in your future autobiography.

English Journal

95

A Master Teachers Responsibility to the Future

as they related the events of each day, while also describing where they lived, immediate family and close friends, their job, their style of dress, a favorite sport or hobby, a major news story from a TV newscast or webcast or a daily newspaper, an obstacle or challenge they faced, and something signicant that they had accomplished that day. I further suggested that students make each day in their future autobiographies coincide with their birthdays, occasions when humans traditionally take stock of their lives and make plans for the future. In their stories of each day (three to four typed pages), students were asked to cite at least ve probabilities or predictions mentioned in the articles about the future that they had read. Each citation could be a direct quote, paraphrase or summary, and would follow parenthetical MLA style.

Dynamic Graphics/Thinkstock

Students were required to submit rst drafts of Day One, which I read, corrected, and returned. I decided later to require students to do some research on their own: to nd and cite four articles about the future, in addition to the 14 articles and the short story I had given them to read. This expanded the bibliography to a total of 19 articles and one short story. For conclusions to their autobiographies, I asked the students to write their own obituaries, listing some major achievements in their lives, along with some lessons they had learned and some nal thoughts they wished to leave behind. The following are excerpts from future autobiographies written in 2011 and 2012 by rst- year En glish Composition students at Methodist University. They attest to the value of this assignment for making millennials think and write about current problems that will affect their futures. In the fall of 2011, a nontraditional (older) student described a day from 2071, when she would be 78 years of age. She said she would be living on Mars, having been forced to move there from Earth to help conserve Earths dwindling resources. She described visiting a technological exposition with her grandson and looking at artifacts from 2011: a spy hummingbird, electronic reading glasses, a smell- vision TV set, and a car that would park itself. In the fall of 2012, a 24-year-old male wrote of a day in 2032 when the lights went out . . . and the world ended as I knew it . . . caused by a long stream of ignorance and greed. He reported that Americas decit had skyrocketed to 90 percent of GDP by

2022, precipitating national and worldwide economic collapses, riots, mass chaos, and nally, the loss of Americas electric power grid. This student identied himself as an FBI agent who had purchased 50 acres of farmland in 2020, where he and his wife were trying to become entirely self- sufcient. Setting his death in 2072 at the age of 84, this autobiographer wrote the following to be read at his funeral and printed in his obituary:
Embrace the lesson we have learned in this struggle and have faith that our children will have a better future. Remember that death is the only certainty of life, and life is what we make of it.

After reading papers like these, it seems that Alvin Tofer was right. Writing these papers does two important things for students. First, it encourages them to be creative and take individual responsibility for their own futures, and second, it helps them avoid future shock. Moreover, these papers have shown that many millennials are ready, willing, and able to embrace the changes needed to ensure the survival of our planet. As a baby boomer I was taught that each individual is unique and has the power to make a positive difference in the world. Although time is short, En glish teachers are in a great position to encourage millions of young students to consider some of the problems facing Earth and its inhabitants. As you consider new ways to challenge yourself and your students, make future autobiographies part of your teaching methodology. This process will

96

January 2014

Continuous Becoming: Moving toward Mastery

enhance your craft as you learn in novel ways. While asking your students to read about, think about, and write about the future, you will be fullling your responsibility as a master teacher to encourage the next generation to be better stewards of our world.

Editors Note

Works Cited

The author will share with anyone who Anft, Michael, Scott Carlson, David requests them his future autobiography Dudley, and Farhad Manjoo. Our list of readings. He can be reached via World in the Year 2020. AARP: regular mail at Methodist University, The Magazine. November/December 5400 Ramsey Street, Fayetteville, NC 2010: 87. Print. 28311 and by phone at (910) 630- Tofer, Alvin. Future Shock. New York: 7086. His email address is billings@ Bantam, 1990. Print. methodist.edu.

William H. Bill Billings is an En glish instructor at Methodist University in Fayetteville, North Carolina. He wrote From Cotton Field to University: A History of Methodist University, chronicling the rst 50 years of the school. In 2009, Billings became a full- time member of the En glish faculty at Methodist University.

Poem Written at Subway

I teach En glish but reach deep to ink words onto yearbook pages and the 478 assignments I will grade this week. 167 of 180 9 period days having lapsed, 39 minutes a pop, 118 students, 29 desks, Room 310. Language is a sauce with parts indistinct. I am a poet sinking in a swamp, scanning the bank for numbers to climb toward my life: today is 6.6.12., the rst 2 equaling the year, my oldest 2 students 19 and 19, me 38. I have 1 wife, 2 children, a 12- inch sub with avocado, $10.59 for the meal. 23 minutes until class begins again. I am 6 feet tall, 205 pounds, possess 4 ventricles that ood when she laughs 9 years our 2 hands clasped, 2- lips tiptoeing. 1 shade of marmalade sprouts from our boys heads, 6 and 4, 2 cats on their bunks, 9 planets on the ceiling, 44 presidents on the door, 207 world ags scotch- taped to every wall we own. I am coming back only 7 minutes to the beach, 55 to Manhattan and 1 to the backyard, past the trellis where 37 roses point my way to the lter I backwash when the gauge hits 15. Avocado was a great call. And yes, I still call Pluto a planet. I can tally lms and national parks and basil shoots from here, stress ticking down to 0, inviting me, my family maybe all of us to add together the blessings we can count on. Matt Pasca
2014 by Matt Pasca

Matt Pasca is an award- winning high school En glish teacher whose poetry has appeared in more than a dozen journals and nine print anthologies. His rst book, A Thousand Doors (2011, JB Stillwater), was nominated for the 2012 Pushcart Prize in Poetry. Email mattpasca@verizon.net or visit http://www.mattpasca.com.

English Journal

97