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B. Baylis

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Aphasia Is Not the End of the World

I admit that at times I need to remind myself that my mild case of aphasia is not the end of the world. Really, the only things I’ve lost are just some words, and usually it is only a temporary loss. I still have the things that really count in life. I still have my loving and supportive family. I still have a compassionate and praying church family. I still have considerate and helpful neighbors. I still have concerned and respectful colleagues and friends from more than forty years in higher education. I still have a team of knowledgeable and caring medical personnel. All of these people are individuals on whom I can lean. I have a real social network, not a virtual one. In addition to all these people, I still have my mind. A piece of advice to caregivers and friends, I really do not need sympathy. Please just be there when I need you, be supportive and encouraging at every step of the process, that’s the best gift you can give, and the thing I need the most.

When I run into road blocks on writing projects, I have learned that I can put those projects down and return to them later. I have also learned that after I have made a real attempt, I can then ask for help at any time. After several attempts when the words don’t come, I have also learned that it is okay to completely walk away from some projects. It’s not the end of the world.

Aphasia is not the end of the world. I am still alive and I am still me.

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We Are All Different

Living with aphasia and epilepsy has reminded me of a very important lesson in life. That lesson is that: “We are all different. One individual is not necessarily better than another. He or she may just be different.” What am I talking about? Four incidents in my life have reinforced this lesson. You might say that I have been a slower learner.
The first incident was an automobile accident more than thirty years ago. I was stopped waiting to make a left-hand turn and I was rear-ended by a car doing forty miles per hour. Due to the whiplash caused by the accident, the back of my head struck the head rest, breaking it off. In doing so, I suffered a serious concussion that permanently affected my sense of taste. Ever since that accident, everything has tasted salty. For more than thirty years, I have not had to salt any food at the table. For a short time after the accident, I had a memory of what food “actually tasted like.” After thirty years, the memory of “true taste” has faded away. What should have this taught me about the difference in people? We observe the world through our senses. My sense of taste is different from yours. Because they are different, that doesn’t make one any better than the other.
The final three incidents are all related to just one episode. A blood vessel in a benign tumor in my brain burst, giving the appearance of a stroke and leaving me with many of the same after effects as those of a stroke. The first of those effects is that my physical ability to get around has been diminished. Prior to this episode, I was considered athletic. Until my knees gave out a couple of years ago, I had played fairly competitive basketball and softball for more than fifty years. Over the years, I had four different college basketball coaches invite me to come in and teach their teams how to set picks. Today I need a cane to walk about outside our house. If I am going to walk any distance, I need a stroller with a seat in case I must sit down. Today I have a handicap parking hang-tag to permit us to park in those special parking spots. Was the athletic me any better than the challenged me? I am still me. I am just different.
A second result of either the burst blood vessel filling my cranial cavity with blood or the subsequent removal of the benign tumor is a mild case of aphasia. Aphasia literally means “a loss of words.” It is a communication disorder which affects my ability to use or understand written or oral language. It hasn’t affected my mental capacities, just my ability to use words in a timely fashion. I can still analyze situations as well as I did before. I just can’t respond to them as quickly as I previously did. I know what I want to say, I just can’t find the right words to express it quickly. I need more time to write articles like this, but I can still write. Was the old me better? I am still me, I am just different.
Also as a result of this episode, I had four grand-mal seizures and am now labeled epileptic. Although I am on anti-seizure medication, my wife and I must be on guard for the signs of another seizure. Since not enough time has elapse since my last large seizure, my driving privileges have been taken away from me. Does not being able to drive make me less of a person? I don’t think so now. Prior to this happening to me, I might have thought so.
Before these incidents and after effects, I know I thought differently. I now see why we need to do everything we can to “even out the playing field” in school and work situations for people with challenges. I am more sympathetic to students who need extra time on tests and assignments. They are not lesser persons. All of their capabilities have not necessarily been affected. They can be just as smart. They may just be a little slower. They may even see or taste things in a new and different way that can lend a new perspective to a problem and lead to a new and different solution. My continual salty taste has had one advantage. Coffee that tastes bitter to other people actually tastes okay to me.
For people who see differences as signs of being less of a person, I am not recommending that we need to beat them up one-side of their head and down the other until they change their mind, even though that’s what it took for me.

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Can Faculty Learn from a Broadway Musical

An article that first appeared in the July 4, 2010 e-edition of the Technology Section of The Chronicle of Higher Education was repeated in the July 9, 2010 e-edition of Academe Today. The article was entitled “Linked In With: A Writer Who Questions the Wisdom of Teaching with Technology.”  Because I was familiar with Carr’s writings, this article caught my attention and I had to read it, even though I was confident of what I was going to find. The author of the article, Marc Parry, was talking about and interviewing Nicholas Carr, the author of a book entitled, “The Shallows,” and many articles, including “IT Doesn’t Matter” and “Is Google Making Us Stupid?“As usual, Carr was questioning the efficacy of technology in assisting in the teaching and learning process. This article was vintage Carr.

I believe education is meeting students where they are and helping them to get to where they want and ought to be. If where they want to be is not where they ought to be, then our first job in education is to help them see where they ought to be. I believe every prospective teacher should watch the musical, “My Fair Lady.” Can teachers learn anything from a Broadway musical? I think they can if they are paying attention, especially if they are asked to reflect on one particular scene. The scene takes place in the Professor’s study, when he and the Colonel are celebrating Eliza’s triumphant debut at the gala. Colonel Pickering keeps saying, “You said that you could do it, and you did it.” Professor Higgins replies:”Yes I did it.” But did you see Eliza in the corner of the room crying and sobbing, “What have you done? “ They replied:”We made you a lady.” Eliza responded, “I never asked to be a lady. All I wanted was to be able to speak well enough to sell flowers at the corner shop. Now that I am a lady, there is nothing left for me to do, but to sell myself and marry a gentleman.” The Professor and the Colonel used good pedagogy and “taught her well”, but they didn’t listen to what she wanted, and they definitely didn’t help her understand what it was to be a lady and why that was important.

The following exchange between Perry and  Carr reminded me of that scene from “My Fair Lady:”Perry asked Carr: “If the Internet is making us so distracted, how did you manage to write a 224-page book and read all the dense academic studies that much of it is based on?” Carr responded, “It was hard. The reason I started writing it was because I noticed in myself this increasing inability to pay attention to stuff, whether it was reading or anything else. When I started to write the book, I found it very difficult to sit and write for a couple of hours on end or to sit down with a dense academic paper.” I have found that most of our students today don’t know how to sit down for a couple of hours to read or write. They mentally and physically can’t sit for a couple of hours to read or write. They definitely don’t know how to sit down and read a dense paper. They also don’t know why that should be important. It is not enough for us to tell them just to do it, because it is important and it is good for them. How often to our question of why, do we accept the answer, “Because I told you so; besides it is good for you; or you ought to do it.” At one point in the article after renouncing the use of the internet, Carr says, “my abilities to concentrate did seem to strengthen again. I felt in a weird way intellectually or mentally calmer. And I could sit down and write or read with a great deal of attentiveness for quite a long time.” Our students don’t know why that is important for them unless we help them learn that. Just telling that it is good and that it works for us is not enough. If we want to reach these students, we need to meet them where they are and help them see the benefits of the reflective pursuit of knowledge and truth for them. If we don’t do that, these students might well be like Eliza, sitting in the corner crying that we didn’t listen to them, and we haven’t. The other more likely possibility is they will give up, walk away and never engage in the reflective pursuit of knowledge.

My next question may sound like heresy coming from someone within the academy, “Is the reflective pursuit of knowledge the only way to obtain knowledge? The ancient Greeks allowed and even encouraged at least three different ways of knowing, theoria, poiesis and praxis. Theoria is the word from which we get our words theory and theoretical. In ancient Greece, it meant contemplation or seeing by observation. It developed into the idea of the theoretical pursuit of knowledge and truth through contemplation or reflection. Poiesis is the word from which we get our word poetry. It meant to make or produce. It developed into the idea of creating something of value. Praxis is the word from which we get our words practice or practical. It meant action. It developed into the idea of knowledge applied to one’s actions. The goal of theoria  was truth. The goal of poiesis was a product. The goal of praxis was action.

I challenge those of us in the academy, are we open to different ways of knowing and learning? Are we willing to meet our students where they are, listen to where they want to be, and help them see where they could and ought to be? Are we willing to help them get there, even if it means using multiple ways of knowing and learning that may not at first seem comfortable to us?

is the word from which we get our word poetry. It meant to make or produce. It developed into the idea of creating something of value. Praxis is the word from which we get our words practice or practical. It meant action. It developed into the idea of knowledge applied to one’s actions. The goal of theoria was truth. The goal of poiesis was a product. The goal of praxis was action.
I challenge those of us in the academy, are we open to different ways of knowing and learning? Are we willing to meet our students where they are, listen to where they want to be, and help them see where they could and ought to be? Are we willing to help them get there, even if it means using multiple ways of knowing and learning that may at first not seem comfortable to us?

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For Me, Aphasia is like solving jig saw puzzles with pieces missing

For Me, Aphasia Is Like Solving Jig Saw Puzzles with Missing Pieces

When asked what it’s like living with aphasia and trying to speak or write, I describe it by saying that it is like putting together jig saw puzzles with pieces missing. One trouble with both writing and jig saw puzzles is that you usually don’t know pieces are missing until you get pretty far into the process of writing or solving the puzzle. Like most people, I do jig saw puzzles section by section. After I work on a section for a while, sometimes, I get to a particular place and I find a puzzle piece is missing. I can’t find it. It is just not there. I have hundreds of puzzle pieces spread out in front of me. With writing I get to a particular place and I can’t come up with the right word. I have thousands of words running through my mind. Whether with jig saw puzzles or writing, I am shuffling through all those pieces and words, but the right one that perfectly fits in that one place, is not there. What do you do with jig saw puzzles in this situation?
Most people would usually start looking at another part of the puzzle and try to find puzzle pieces that fit into that new part of the puzzle. If I do that enough for a puzzle, I will use up all the pieces that were in the box, and then I would know for certain that a piece or two are missing. After searching the house for the missing pieces, I might get out the other puzzles and see if the pieces got mixed up in those puzzle boxes. After all that, I really only have three choices: 1) pick up the puzzle pieces and put them back in the box and mark the box to indicate that a piece or two is missing; 2) go to one of those websites that advertize that they can replace missing puzzle pieces and purchase new pieces; or 3) pick up the unfinished puzzle and throw it away.
With my writing, I operate similarly. When I find myself stuck on a word, I will finish the remainder of the essay and then come back to the part with the missing word. Sometimes by then I will have found the word. Sometimes I haven’t. At that point of time, I will start searching in earnest through the word helpers like a cross-word dictionary or a thesaurus to try to find the right word or words. If that doesn’t work, I will set the essay aside and come back to it later. If I can’t find the right word or words then, I know at that point it is time to ask someone for help to find the appropriate word or words. That is like going to the puzzle websites to buy missing pieces. If that doesn’t work, I can either put the project aside and wait for a long time before I come back to it, or I trash it and forget about it.
Right now I have five or six projects on my computer that I have started but are in various stages of incompleteness. For the ones that are almost complete, I have sent copies to friends and former colleagues and asked them to review the projects and make suggestions. For the ones that I think still have possibilities but are in a much rougher state, I have set them aside, and I will come back to them off and on, at much later dates. Over the past months, I have looked at several essays that I have started and have decided that they are beyond repair or restoration. I have trashed them. I keep a file of ideas for essays, just the ideas, but not the real rough starts. Perhaps, I will come back to these ideas with a totally different approach at a much later date. This is a whole new way for me to operate, but it permits me to write and still cope with my mild case of aphasia.
If someone else has used the analogy of living with aphasia to missing jig saw puzzle pieces, I apologize for appropriating it. As an academic I have been trained to give credit for ideas to where credit is due. I did what I thought was a fairly exhaustive internet search on this topic and came up with nothing that was similar to the approach that I am taking in this essay. There were references to many exercises in aphasia therapy in which the individual with aphasia is asked to fill in a missing word in a simple sentence or to name a missing object in a simple picture. However, none of them compared the exercise to missing pieces of a jig saw puzzle. There were many references to autism as living with missing puzzle pieces, but none to aphasia that I could find. In dealing with autistic individuals or individuals with aphasia, I would in no way suggest throwing them away. Here is the place for a therapist or a care giver to provide the right degree of challenge and support to help the individual. An essay or a piece of work is far different from and far less valuable than the individual, although, for many of us, we find it difficult to separate ourselves from our work. It is a lesson from which we could all benefit.

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Centralized or Decentralized Online Learning Offices

In a June 30, 2010 news item in the Wired Campus Section of Chronicle of Higher Education, Marc Parry wrote: “One university’s decision to close its central distance Education office has stirred a national debate over the best way to operate online programs.”

Continuing he remarked, “Under a restructuring of Texas A&M University at College Station, individual colleges will now manage online learning. And tuition paid for those programs will flow directly through those colleges.”

That last phrase captures at least half if not most of the debate. The various colleges want their piece of the revenue pie, if not the whole pie; however, they still expect the university to pick up all the infrastructure costs. The other major portion of the debate is control of the courses offered.

I have seen this debate played out at two different universities. The primary arguments for centralization that I have seen are: 1) A centralized office is more likely to be more economical for the university in terms of equipment and software costs. Bundling the hardware and software needs, the university is more likely to get better pricing and usage discounts from its vendors. Working with fewer vendors usually provides quicker and better service. 2) A centralized platform and centralized course management system is more student friendly. In situations where students may have to or want to take courses from different colleges (e.g. general education requirements), it is much easier for the students to have to learn only one platform. 3) A centralized office is more likely to avoid scheduling conflicts and more widely publicize the whole range of offerings. 4) Expenses are paid from one checkbook. A particular college can’t decide to skip payment of a particular bill (e.g. extra storage or bandwidth to cover usage, upgraded software and new or upgraded servers to handle the new software, or extra personnel to cover programming needs, course design assistance, and help desk features) and thereby curtail or eliminate online learning for that college. 5) It is easier to plan and provide for redundancy requirements, e.g.,( if one college is not using enough bandwidth all the time to warrant the expense of that extra bandwidth, there is the possibility of time-sharing among the colleges). If one server goes down, it is easier and quicker to off-load the work to other servers. Just ask students what they think of your program if they experience a week, a day, or even an hour of down time waiting for you to restore service.

In addition to the revenue argument, other major arguments for a decentralized approach are control of course content and faculty assignments. The various colleges want to make sure the assigned faculties are qualified to teach a given course and that the assigned faculties include all the “appropriate content” and none of the “inappropriate content.”

These are good arguments both for and against a centralized approach. With as much intellectual genius that exists in our institutions, it seems as if we should be able to design a workable hybrid approach. Such an approach would allow the separate colleges to participate in some of the revenue intake, still have some control over individual courses and faculty, and yet makes the whole process economically feasible for the university and accessible to both internal and external audiences of students.

Along with the revenue and expense questions, “To whom are the online courses targeted?” If the target of the online courses is only currently enrolled campus-based students, a decentralized approach may work. If the targeted audience includes a wider audience focusing on part or primarily on external students, a centralized or partially centralized approach makes more sense. External students not familiar with the university structure will be put off with what they view as a runaround, going from college to college to get what they need or want, and they will go to another university they view as more convenient. Internal students may complain about the “runaround” but they will negotiate the winding path to reach their desired goals. To make the online programs economically feasible, it makes more sense to make the intended audience as wide as possible. As in any compromise, both sides will not get everything they want and will have to give up something. That is the nature of compromise. Each university will have to decide what its negotiable items are.

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Charcteristics of an Ideal Major

Characteristics of an Ideal Major
What does the ideal major look like? Almost all undergraduate programs today consist of three parts: General Education, Major, Electives. The major is the primary area of study that the student wishes to pursue. In forty years of academic work, I have had the privilege of helping many programs or departments design and construct majors. In any building job, contractors and builders will tell you that it is absolutely necessary to have a plan before you start building. Those plans may be hand-drawn or put together by architects. In either case, the drawer or the architect begins the plans with a style or a philosophy from which to work. My philosophy of building an ideal major includes the following characteristics.

Definition: a major is a combination of related courses and competency requirements that upon completion will permit the student to pursue further study in the area or obtain an entry job in the area.

Necessary Characteristics:

1. Discipline: A major should be built upon a recognized academic discipline, interdisciplinary area or multidisciplinary combination.
2. Structure: The basic structural design of a major is linear, with a beginning, middle and end.
a. Beginning: Foundational courses introduce students to the primary subdivision of the discipline, and the prerequisite content and skills necessary for success in the discipline.
b. Middle: Core courses build upon the introductory courses providing breadth and depth in the discipline. These courses should include work with the literature, history, philosophical foundations, aesthetics, culture and language of the discipline. They should include increasing development of content, methodologies and skills of the discipline.
c. End: Capstone courses permit students to engage in in-depth work within the discipline. They should also introduce and engage the student in the process of integration of the discipline with other disciplines. Since all of my work has been at faith-based institutions, in the context of these institutions this integration should include the integration of faith and the discipline.
3. Coherence/Cohesiveness/Connectedness/Current: Each major should be designed in such a way that the requirements and topics studied are coherent (logically consistent and holding together as a harmonious and credible whole), cohesive (the requirements and topics studied stick or hold together working as a united whole), and connected (requirements and topics are joined or linked firmly together, having something in common). Each major should also represent the most recent views and interpretations of the discipline.
4. Breadth: The major should permit students to see and explore the breadth of the discipline in terms of content sub-divisions, and in terms of the literature, history, philosophical foundations, aesthetics, culture, language, methodologies, skills and values associated with the discipline
5. Depth: The major should provide enough in-depth work to permit students upon the completion of the major, the opportunity to begin engagement in graduate study within the discipline or a closely related discipline, or to obtain employment in an initial position.
6. Experiential Learning: Each major should provide an opportunity for every student to participate in an experiential learning component within the framework of the major. The major should develop experiential learning components that include a foundation for the experience, the experience itself which is based upon well-defined learning objectives, and a reflective component after the experience that provides an opportunity to tie together the achieved learning objectives. If credit is given, it is not to be given for the experience itself. It should be given for the completion of specified learning objectives in connection with the reflective component.
7. Service Learning: Each major should introduce the general principles of service learning and the specific principles of service associated with the particular discipline. Each major should provide an opportunity for every student to engage in service learning within the framework of the discipline, and encourage students to participate in a service learning experience. If credit is given it is not to be given just for the service; it is to be given for the learning component of the service learning experience.
8. Leadership: Each major should introduce the general principles of leadership and the specific principles of leadership associated with the particular discipline. Each major should provide an opportunity for every student to test his or her leadership potential, and encourage every student to aspire to appropriate leadership positions.
9. Multi-cultural/Cross-Cultural: Each major should provide students with the opportunity to become involved in a multicultural/cross-cultural or global experience within the framework of the discipline. Each major should encourage every student to take advantage of these offered experiences.
10. Thinking Skills: Each major should provide students with an understanding of and practice in the critical and creative thinking skills associate with the discipline. Upon completion of the major, each student should have been exposed to and required to demonstrate appropriate skill in the higher level thinking skills of evaluation, synthesis, analysis, application and understanding within the context of the discipline. Each student should have had adequate practice in creating, evaluating, analyzing, applying and understanding within the context of the discipline.
11. Communication Skills: Each major should provide students with an introduction to and practice in the various communication modes indigenous to the discipline. At a minimum, the major should have at least one writing intensive course required of all students. At a minimum, the major should have at least one course in which the student is required to make oral presentations.
12. Problem Solving Skills: Each major should introduce students to the main problem solving methodologies used by the discipline. Students should have adequate practice in solving typical problems of the disciplines.
13. Cooperative Learning/Collaboration: Each major should provide students with opportunities to engage in cooperative learning. Students should be encouraged to collaborate within the normal framework of the discipline.
14. Research Skills/Scholarship: Each major should introduce the students to the normal research practices of the disciplines. Students should be encouraged to engage in scholarship within the bounds of the discipline.
15. Career Planning: Each major should introduce the students to the normal career paths of individuals working within the disciplines. Each major should provide opportunities for students to career shadow a professional within the discipline. All students within the major should be encouraged to tentatively lay out career plans for themselves.
16. Portfolio Development: Each major should introduce students to the typical portfolio designs used within the discipline. Students should be encouraged to begin a professional portfolio that they could begin to use after graduation.
17. Ethical Concerns of the Discipline: Each major should introduce the students to the primary ethical concerns of the discipline. Students should be introduced to and required to read something from the primary authors who address ethical concerns within the discipline. All students should be required to begin to think about what position or positions they should take related to the primary ethical concerns of the discipline.
18. Lifelong Learning: Each major should encourage and instill within every student the understanding of the necessity for and the desire to engage in lifelong learning.
19. Citizenship within the Discipline: Each major should introduce students to the expectations of behavior of professionals within the discipline toward each other and toward the community. Students should be given opportunities to practice aspects of citizenship before they graduate.
20. Economical: Each major should be designed in such a way that it is as efficient and economical as possible for both student and faculty. It should offer the necessary courses to achieve the mission and goals of the major, but not require, or even offer a proliferation of unnecessary courses.
21. Resources: Each major should have the necessary resources (personnel, facilities, equipment, library material, and technology) to achieve its goals and mission and satisfy the fulfillment of these characteristics.
Since my entire career has been in faith-based institutions, for such institutions I would add another characteristic.
22. Integration of Faith and Learning: Integration of faith and learning refers to the process of combining a discipline and one’s faith in such a way that the process gives meaning to or helps interpret isolated facts or makes connections between one’s faith and the discipline. It is an attempt to synthesize knowledge. Integration approaches knowledge and problems from interdisciplinary and/or multi-disciplinary points of view. The key questions in integration are: a)”What do the findings mean?”and b)”How do they provide a larger, more comprehensive understanding of the discipline and/or one’s faith? The major should not only help the student to begin the process of integration of faith and learning, but should also help the student engage in the process in some meaningful way.