ABSTRACT
Chapter 6, STEM Education and the Miracle of Life, co-authored with Katy Adams, takes seriously recent critiques of the STEM agenda as philosophically grounded in the rationalist, mechanistic, anthropocentric, and individualistic discourses that reinforce global market measures of success. Wendell Berry’s eloquent prose builds the case for an alternative vision of success, success rooted in how our personal use of the world contributes to its health and therefore our own, a world where we recognize the infinite not as an “enormous quantity” but rather a cycle that renews (Berry, 1996, p. 88). Three ideas are essential to Berry’s argument: (1) Human perspective on the world is limited; science is a human endeavor, therefore science cannot lead to absolute knowledge. (2) Success lies not in progress or our ability to control through technology, but in our capacity to respond appropriately to the real complexities of life in a way that nurtures both natural and human communities. (3) Meaningful knowledge is situated and arises through relationships of affection and action, not the abstract acquisition of more and still more information. Berry’s belief in the nature of learning as a holistic endeavor that cannot divorce body from place without injury (Berry, 2002, 1996) invites closer investigation of how people actually teach, learn, and use STEM for healthy communities.
