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The Population Bust

The population bust

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Category: Opinion

27 Aug 2014

Written by The BusinessMirror Editorial

THERE is something in our culture that helps us avoid planning for the longer term. This quality manifests itself in many diverse ways. “Preventive maintenance” usually means knowing what part to buy when the machine breaks down. The worst case is the one like the Metro Rail Transit Line 3, where preventive maintenance means thinking about knowing eventually which part to buy.

But thinking about and planning for the future can be critical if a nation does not want to be overtaken by events that get completely out of control.

The age demographic of a country today is vitally important to its future tomorrow. The best situation would probably be for a nation to reach an ideal population size and then to balance the birth and death rate. But this sort of social engineering is difficult, at best, and often has unintended consequences.

During the leadership of Mao Zedong, there were massive changes in Chinese demographics. The crude birth rate fell from 37 per 1,000 to 20. Infant mortality dropped from 227 per 1,000 in 1949 to 53 per 1,000 in 1981. Life expectancy increased from 35 years to 66 in 1976.

But along the way, the Chinese government bought into the idea of a global overpopulation disaster, even as its own birth rate was declining. In 1979 the one-child policy was implemented and was estimated to have averted some 200 million births.

However, the unintended consequence is that, in 2030—only 16 years from now—China’s population will begin to shrink and grow much older. Even now, there are about 20 million Chinese males who will never find a wife and raise a family because there are not enough women.

China announced the decision to further relax its one-child policy last November. Under the new policy, families can have two children if one parent is an only child. This aims to stop the demographic disaster of the decades-long drop in the number of births. However, it is a failure, as less than 3 percent of the 11 million Chinese couples eligible for another child applied for permission by the end of May.

Some of the consequences by 2030 will be higher wages, as there will be a smaller labor force. Other economic results include less demand for all types of goods and services, as it is the younger people who spend big money, not the old folks.

The Philippines will hit the age demographic “sweet spot” with majority of Filipinos in the working-age group in 2045. Asia will be changed dramatically in the next 25 years.

Link to the article 

Discussion Board Guidelines

The goal is to achieve real-world applications of geographic concepts learned in class through weekly news analyses.

Discussion board instructions

1. Read the post from Mr. Barnes on the discussion board for the sub-topic currently being studied in class (ex. Environment 3).

2. Provide analysis of the post by applying geographic theories, tools or concepts that can be related to the article. The length should be 50-100 words only!  This post is due by the end of the day on Friday.

3. Comment on someone else's post.  Challenge their conviction by responding critically to what they've said.  This is due by the end of the day on Sunday.

Do:

• relate your post to what we're learning.
• keep discussions going by commenting multiple posts.
• insert links to related information.
• use statistics, geographic terminology, theories and concepts.
• include a country/example in your post.

Do not:

• summarise the article.
• create new topics (if you want to do that, join reddit).
• use inappropriate language.

Weekly Discussion Board Rubric

Criteria	Response to Article
3	The response or comment has been effectively applied to the original post.  A clear, thoughtful critical analysis has been made. There is no superfluous material or repetition. An additional response comment has been made meeting the same conditions.
2	The response has been mostly applied to the article, but there are possible omissions or inaccuracies.  The analysis is mostly critical but lacks depth or development.  Response tends to be more descriptive. A response comment is not made.
1	A response is not been made, or the response is vague or merely summarises the original post.  The post is mostly descriptive with little to no analysis.  The post is off topic without relating to what we're studying. No response comment is made.

IB geography differentiation strategy

I don't blog often so I'm going to keep this short.

When I was working at the International School of Bangkok years ago, I took a two week course on differentiation taught by Bill and Ochan Powell.  They offered many great strategies for how to differentiate instruction in the classroom from simple "think, pair, share stuff" to more complex "cognitive coaching."  It really was a bulldozer of information.

But there was this one strategy I couldn't think of how to implement, until now, that really struck me as the most powerful.  Over the last couple of days, as I struggle for more and more ways to reach all of my juniors before the end of the semester and all of my seniors before their final exams in May, I think I may have managed a way to put this theory to practice.

If you teach IB geography, you know about command terms and assessment objectives (AO).  Command terms are basically just words either in the syllabus or within the questions on the exam that determine the depth of the answer.  For example, the answer to a question that asks the student to Describe is going to be considerably less in depth than Analyze.  Command terms (or sometimes referred to as "command words") are found within every IB subject, I think, and are more or less modeled after Bloom's Taxonomy.  This is partially evidenced by the fact that each IB geography command term is given a different assessment objective.  To use the above example, a question that asks a student to Describe is only needing an answer that shows the student's knowledge and understanding of the subject/content/topic.  Likewise, a question that asks a student to Analyze needs more information: not only does the student need to have knowledge and understanding but also must be able to take that information and synthesize the information or "create" something in a way so that all of the separate knowledge makes a completely new whole.  Again, if you teach IB geography, then you know this.  The following is what I'm proposing (adapted from some math teacher Bill and Ochan Powell talked about):

So just like on a ski hill you have different difficulties of runs (see below).  You've got green circles which indicate easy/beginner runs, you've got blue squares which indicate intermediate/challenging runs and you've got the ever famous black diamond which indicates the most advanced/difficult runs.  Beginner skiers can start off with the most basic of runs and as they improve, become more comfortable and gain confidence they have the ability to choose progressively more advanced runs.  The beauty is that everyone can ski and progress together regardless of ability level because they've been given the opportunity to choose.

My plan is to apply this concept to IB geography.  Now that at least 10 exams have been given and I know what command terms the students are likely to see, I'm just going to create my own tests that mirror these ski hill difficulty ratings and command terms/assessment objectives.

Green circle - AO1 command terms

Blue square - AO1/AO2 command terms

Black diamond - AO1/AO2/AO3 command terms

----------OPTIONAL TWO BELOW----------------

Double black diamond - Globalization

Freestyle - Mock IB exam

The idea is to have the three levels prepared at the beginning of a test day and have the students choose which test they feel is right for them.  For the seniors, its a little late considering they all need to be riding the black diamond runs by next month but for my juniors, there's no doubt time to progress.  I would say that most of them could rage a black diamond but there are definitely some who are more than likely still only ready for a blue square and even some yet who are still riding a green circle.  The beauty is that students choose for themselves with guidance from the teacher.  The teacher should obviously want them to push their limit and progress to more difficult levels but if they try a level that is still too difficult for them, then it would be expected they be allowed to find their most comfortable level with trial and error.

I'm hoping this will allow my class to be more fully integrated in differentiation.  I'm planning on setting up these tests for the end of this school year but will more than likely implement this strategy at the start of next school year.  If anyone has any comments about this teaching strategy or would like me to keep them posted, I'd love to hear from you.  I'm open to suggestions.

Environmental change

ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE BLOG PROMPT

1. Select one of the seven different syllabus points below.

2. Post the syllabus point to your blog and write a brief response (2-3 paragraphs) to the point.

3. As always, comment on another person's blog post.

Extra

• Search for and watch a youtube video on e-waste.

• Identify any overlaps between these syllabus points and other units/topics you've studied in this class.

Economic interactions and flows

Prompt instructions

1. Read through this Greenfield geography site on information flows.

2. Choose an item from the site that is of particular interest to you.

3. Post what you chose to your blog and write a brief comment about why you found it interesting.

4. End your post with a question about the topic you blogged about that you'd like to have answered.

5. Don't forget to comment on someone else's post from your class.

EXTRA

Watch any of videos from the International Organizations section of the Plaid Avenger website.