Aphasia

January 1, 2021 By B. Baylis Leave a Comment

Greeting on New Year’s Day 2021

How do I start BY’s MUSINGS on a high note in the year 2021? This image is courtesy of Presenter Media.

I woke up the day after Christmas thinking about the rapidly approaching new year. At the top of my “WANT TO DO LIST” was a New Year’s Post for By’s Musings. Do I reflect on the year 2020? My first instinct was to say, “No! It was a year many people would rather forget.”

Does that suggest that I should write about the coming 2021 year? If I were to do that, should I concentrate on my personal goals and desires or general world events? If I look outside my personnel realm of concerns, should I focus on only the positives or negatives? What if I throw caution to the wind and go for broke? I could cover the waterfront and deal with both the good and bad?

Will the current corona vaccines work? Will enough people get the shots? This image is courtesy of Presenter Media.

Will 2021 bring a return to “normalcy?” At some point, will working vaccines triumph over the virus? Will we achieve some semblance of herd immunity? Will we be able to socialize again? Will we be able to worship in large group settings? Will we have face-to-face learning? Will we be able to go to restaurants and enjoy a great meal prepared and served by other people? Will we be able to participate as spectators or rival combatants in sporting events? Will we be able to have in-office doctors’ appointments? Will we be able to go shopping again in stores and touch items?

How long into 2021 will our TV newscasts look like this? This image is courtesy of Presenter Media.

Or will 2021 be a rerun of 2020? Will the Covid virus dominate the news for another year? Will infection, hospitalization, and death counts continue to rise exponentially? Will families and other social structures disintegrate even more in the face of forced separations and tragedies? Will we be dealing with political wrangling for another year? Will small and large businesses continue to fail? Will unemployment numbers and woes persist? Will wages stagnate while prices rise? Will students continue to struggle and fall further behind, creating a lingering educational catastrophe? Will human shortcomings and faults overshadow the good and heroic acts of individuals?

Once I get on the trail of an idea, I have trouble letting go of it. The ideas keep flowing. This image is courtesy of Presenter Media.

After careful consideration and three days of writing, I have decided to attempt to do all of the above and more. Of course, that will require multiple posts.

Surprise! [NOT REALLY!] When I start writing, the ideas never stop. One editor with whom I have worked has accused me of having the Russian novel syndrome.

Before my traumatic brain incidents of 2009, I was hardly ever at a loss for words. I had trouble saying “Hello” in less than 100 words. When the dual cranial explosions and multiple seizures of 2009 introduced aphasia into my life and vocabulary, words became a two-edged sword.

I’m not an artist. This image is courtesy of Presenter Media.

I am still contemplating ideas all the time. However, these ideas now flood my head with visual images. Since I’m not an artist, I can’t draw or paint pictures to describe my thinking. I have excelled at certain painting tasks, like houses, barns, room walls, and cars. The only detailed painting I have attempted is woodwork. I can do this because I can set up a tape barrier to keep me within the lines. I have even had to give up doing this because of increased tremors in my dominant right hand. I can’t paint any houses or barns because my doctors have ordered me to stay off ladders.

However, to communicate with others, I must revert to words. Finding the right words to use to describe the pictures I see is a huge struggle. I know the words are still in my head. I can’t find them. I must dig through the rubble and sift through piles of debris.

What happens if I incorporate this idea into this story? If it doesn’t fit, can’t I include it in an additional post? This image is courtesy of Presenter Media.

If I am going to write several more New Year’s posts, humanly speaking, it is only sensible to design a plan. The trouble with that approach is that I have too many ideas to stuff into the tiny container of three or four blog posts, and the plan keeps changing.

God’s timing is perfect. At the appropriate moment, He appeared to Abram with one command. In Genesis 12:1, we read,

The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you. (NLT)

This command is both precise and deliberately vague. The specificity focused on what Abram was to leave behind. He was to move away from his familiar home and his relatives, especially his father’s family. The vagueness centered on his destination. He was to go to a place which the Lord would show him.

I believe that God is telling me to “Go ahead and write.” It is not yet clear what I will be writing, but I will be writing during January and perhaps beyond. I claim the promise that God gave to Isaiah,

And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them.[Isaiah 42:16, KJV]

With God’s help, I will find my next steps and write my next posts. God bless you and yours as we step into 2021.

February 25, 2017 By B. Baylis 1 Comment

Education’s Big Lie, Part II: We Can Think without Words

As I noted at the end of Education’s Big Lie, Part I: Introduction, I have learned that we can think without words. However, in much of today’s world, particularly those parts of it touching the education enterprise, communicating without words is much more difficult, if not next to impossible. Although as the following giggleBites cartoon illustrates communicating with words can have its own drawbacks.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and Cartoosh, author of the cartoon. Wikimedia has received an e-mail confirming that the copyright holder has approved publication and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.This correspondence has been reviewed by an OTRS member and stored in its permission archive.

One thing that the above cartoon brought forcefully to my attention is that the expression “A picture is worth a thousand words” implies “words” are the basis of value. Pictures and ideas are valued in terms of words. Have you ever heard anyone ask how much of a picture does one word equal? In any exchange of objects of value using two different currencies, one of those currencies is considered dominant. The transaction is then conducted in that currency. In education, we tend to try to force the exchange of ideas in the currency of words. We almost never let pictures speak for themselves. We have to “explain them.”

“Let me explain this idea to you.” Image courtesy of Presenter Media.

If words are our basis for the exchange of ideas, then we must have a storehouse of words to express our ideas. Aphasia is an insidious deficiency in that it steals one’s words, the basis of exchange, but not the ideas, the real objects of value. Ideas are locked inside one’s head with no easy way to communicate them.

I have managed to deal with my aphasia because of the verbal proficiency that I built up over my 60-year love affair with words. The filing cabinets in my head are filled with words. After the TBI’s, I still had a treasure trove of words in my memory which I found I could access intermittently.

Finding the right words. Image courtesy of Presenter Media

However, even with my experience and confidence with words, many times I felt words were playing “Hide and Seek” with me. Can you imagine how difficult it is for children who don’t have the same experience or comfort with words? The ideas are right there in front of the children, but they can’t find the words to express them. It’s like the “Where’s Waldo Game?” Waldo is hidden in plain sight. Let’s play “Where’s Waldo” with the dead leaf mantis in the following picture.

Can you find the bug? Somewhere in this picture is a Dead leaf mantis (Deroplatys desiccata). The picture was taken at Bugworld in the Bristol Zoo, Bristol, England. If this mantis is alarmed it lies motionless on the rainforest floor, disappearing among the real dead leaves. It eats other animals up to the size of small lizards. From the island of Madagascar, Africa. This work has been released into the public domain by its author, Arpingstone. This applies worldwide.

Having gone through my trials, I can empathize with children who must be completely bewildered when confronted with what must seem like nonsense to them. For the past eight years, it has been a constant, uphill battle for me to attempt to do the things that were second nature to me prior to the TBI’s. Even putting together these simple essays has been an exhausting task. At times, it has been an almost overwhelming chore. I have to visualize my thoughts. I must then translate those pictures into appropriate words and coherent sentences. The images that I intersperse in my posts represent the starting points of where I begin my thinking. Since I am retired, living on a fixed income, my drawing ability leaves much to be desired, I must find public domain or royalty free pictures which mirror the figures that I am seeing in my mind. I must then struggle to translate those images into words.

Where did our classrooms and education go astray? If we want to measure a child’s creativity, imagination, intelligence, curiosity, ingenuity, reasoning, and problem-solving I propose we go back and watch children play. The first picture that comes to my mind is the baby in a medical insurance television advertisement that rolls over from his back to his stomach. The baby then reaches for and grabs a soft, cloth ball. The baby then plays with the ball, feeling it, squeezing it and trying to taste it. The baby has no words to describe what he is doing. No words are spoken about what the baby is doing, but curiosity is clearly visible in the baby’s eyes and actions.

Give a one-year-old child a few crayons and the back of a paper placemat in a restaurant and watch creativity and imagination come to the fore. Give five-year-old children a new toy like a little red wagon and watch them play out interactive stories. Give six-year-old children a set of Legos and watch them build houses and monsters. Give seven-year-old children jigsaw puzzles and watch them develop problem-solving skills. In most of these situations, words are seldom to be found.

The artist was 1 year 10 months when this was drawn. Soft crayon on paper. Uploaded by the child’s parent. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

Since our society has dictated that our culture is passed along from generation to generation via the media of books and verbal stories, I realize that language, words, and verbal thinking must eventually come into play in education. However, I do not believe we must necessarily equate the mental characteristics of creativity, imagination, intelligence, curiosity, ingenuity, reasoning, and problem-solving with verbal thinking and verbal proficiency. I would argue that I am not alone in this position.

For more than 200 hundred years, the New York City Harbor was the first port of call for people and goods entering the United States on the east coast. It didn’t matter whether it was a military or civilian ship. It didn’t matter whether it was driven by wind or steam. It didn’t matter whether it was large or small. It headed for New York City first. For almost 1500 years, words have been the first port of call in the generation of ideas.

New York City Harbor from the Brooklyn Bridge 1893. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. The image is in public domain because it was published prior to 1923.

In a number of areas outside of education, words are not the first port of call for the devotees of certain pursuits. Additionally, there have been a few brave individuals in areas dominated by words that have taken the very courageous step of coming out of the shadows and admitting that they are visual thinkers. In my next post in this series, Education’s Big Lie, Part III: Visual Thinkers in the Spotlight, I highlight a number of these individuals.

February 16, 2017 By B. Baylis 2 Comments

Education’s Big Lie, Part I: Introduction

I don’t know how to say it any clearer. I have come to the shocking conclusion that the enterprise of American education is doing society a huge disservice by propagating and perpetuating a big lie. Please do not misinterpret what I am attempting to say in this essay. I am firmly convinced that education is immensely valuable. Paraphrasing a credit card commercial campaign, it is “priceless.” For more than 65 years, my life has revolved around faith, education, and family. I am fully committed to the concept of an appropriate education for everyone. However, I am also very certain that education, as it is currently conceived and generally defined, doesn’t and can’t serve everyone equally well. To paraphrase a television commercial for a particular internet service, “Education that doesn’t serve everyone, doesn’t serve anyone.” The simplest statement of Education’s Big Lie is Procrustes’s aphorism “one size fits all.”

Caricature from 19th century German satirical magazine “Berliner Wespen” (Berlin Wasps) – Title: Procrustes. Caption: Bismarck: As I see, Lady Liberty is somewhat too large – we want to change this immediately to her contention. (He chops away her legs.) – Inscription on bed: Socialist Law. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons; in Public Domain

By “one size fits all” I am surprisingly not referring to either standardized testing or the Common Core. Both of these educational fads have their good and bad points. I will explicate my views on each of them in later posts. For this post, I return to a fuller statement of my understanding of the Big Lie plaguing the American educational enterprise. The reality to which I am referring is that the American educational enterprise has pigeon-holed the mental characteristics of creativity, imagination, intelligence, curiosity, ingenuity, reasoning, and problem-solving primarily if not exclusively to the verbal region of the human brain. The Big Lie equates these characteristics with one’s facility with words. Many if not most of the instruments used to measure these mental characteristics are primarily verbally based. To improve their abilities in the areas delineated above, students are instructed to read, write, and speak more.

So many books, so little time! Illustration courtesy of Presenter Media

If at first, you don’t succeed, try, try again! Draft; after draft! Illustration courtesy of Presenter Media

Why? Why did the teacher call on me? I don’t know the answer! Image courtesy of Presenter Media

This solution may work for many and possibly the majority of students. However, the problem with this remedy is that for a significant number of students words are more like enemies than friends. Words are at the crux of my argument against education. Ideas are considered the coin of the realm in education. For centuries in education, we have been indoctrinated to believe that ideas are formulated almost exclusively through words. After ideas are formed, we must then use words to express those ideas, either in written or oral form. We are taught that to think properly we must use a process that is based in and undergirded by the use of words. This process is commonly known as verbal thinking. I grew up with that mindset. In this mindset, words are the cornerstone upon which we build our ideas.

Ideas are built upon a foundation of words, phrases, and sentences. Image courtesy of Presenter Media

This was the way I was taught. It is the way most of our American society has been taught for hundreds of years. I am going out on a limb now and say that this is not the only way we think or must think. It took two traumatic brain incidents (TBI’s) in 2009 to convince me that there are other ways to think. The first TBI was the implosion of a benign meningioma due to the explosion of the artery which was feeding it. This TBI left me with a mild case of aphasia. As a verbal thinker, I found it difficult to think when I couldn’t find my beloved words.

The second TBI was a series of four tonic-clonic seizures within 30 minutes that left me in a coma for three days. When I woke up, I knew immediately something was different. I found myself no longer going directly to words to make sense of what was going on around me. I saw pictures. At first, I wasn’t certain what had happened. As I reflected on what was happening, I remember several articles that I had read that were written by stroke survivors. I was having the same experiences that they had encountered. I had become a visual thinker.

After 60 years of being a poster child for verbal thinking, words were now my second thought language, Although I was thinking in terms of pictures, I found that it was necessary for me to use words to communicate my ideas. This was extremely frustrating at times. I attempted to describe my feelings in a 2010 blog posting entitled Words Are More Like Cats Than Dogs.

Sometimes corraling words can be harder than herding cats. Image courtesy of Presenter Media

Where am I going with this argument? For centuries in educational circles, words have been king.

I am WORD! I have the final say. You must listen to me! Image courtesy of Presenter Media.

A recent Google+ posting The Importance of Imagination by Elaine Roberts, a former colleague, induced me to write this series of posts. In her posting, Roberts described a situation that led her to an epiphany and two points of clarity. The situation grew out of an attempt by a teacher to test or evaluate the creativity of a class of sixth graders. This teachers’ attempt was not a standardized test. It was a writing assignment. Most educators would label this assignment as an authentic assessment instrument. The teacher gave the children the following set of instructions:

Okay. Students, your assignment is very simple. Just write me a story about anything. Image courtesy of Presenter Media

What do I imagine some of the students heard? “Blah, Blah, Blah!”

Blah, Blah,Blah. I don’t understand what this teacher wants us to do. Image courtesy of Presenter Media

Even though they had previously been given a template to use in writing stories, what were the first thoughts of some students about constructing a story? I think they probably drew a blank.

“The teacher wants us to write a story. What am I going to do? How can I write a story? I don’t know what to write about.” Image courtesy of Presenter Media.

Taking literary license with this scenario, what did I imagine this student wanted to turn into the teacher? Simply, a blank piece of paper.

How can I write anything, if I don’t know what I should be writing about? Image courtesy of Presenter Media

What do I think the teacher’s response to a blank piece of paper woul be? Most likely, he would have said to himself, “What is wrong with this student? The wiring in his head must be all tangled up.” Now the shoe is on the other foot. The teacher doesn’t know what the student is trying to say.

“What’s up with this mixed up student? The instructions were so easy. How could not understand them? How could you turn in a blank piece of paper?” Image courtesy of Presenter Media.

With respect to the spread of the Big Lie, I readily admit that my hands are not entirely clean. Prior to 2009, as I noted above, I could have been considered a poster child for verbal thinking and verbal learning. In all of my recollections of my earliest childhood, I was constantly immersed in books and words. At the age of five, I won a Sunday School contest for being the first primary student (Grades K through 6) during the new church year to recite 100 selected verses by memory.

Yipee! I did it. I was the first to recite all 100 verses by memory.

As an academic professional, I made my living off words. Even as a mathematician, my training, and education were dominated by words. As an instructor, I constantly fed my students words.

“Okay class, who can explain Zorn’s Lemma and what is it’s relationship to the Well-Ordering Principle?” Image courtesy of Presenter Media.

As an administrator, I used words to defend positions and try to persuade colleagues to follow my lead.

Colleagues, I know the message I bring to you today at this faculty meeting will not be pleasant to hear. I want you to know that it is hard for me to have to deliver it to you. However, we are facing a huge budget deficit. I have two proposed solutions. Neither of them will be without pain. But I am bringing them to you today, to get your reactions and suggestions.” Image courtesy of Presenter Media.

With what I have written so far, I should probably call it quits for this first post in this series. If I haven’t done enough to damage my image and credibility within the higher education community, I invite you to stay tuned for additional posts. Although it has been difficult at times, I have learned that we can think without words. In fact, I have subtitled Part II of the series Education’s Big Lie, “We Can Think without Words.” Even though we give lip service to the idea that “A picture is worth a thousand words”, in much of today’s world, particularly those parts of it touching the education enterprise, the most difficult aspect of working with thoughts and ideas is trying to communicate them without words.

October 19, 2016 By B. Baylis Leave a Comment

Words: I’m finding that trying to hit a moving target, while still forging my message, is a full-time job.

“O words, words! Wherefore art thou words?”…” Belonging to a man. O, be some other word! What’s in a word? That which we call a rose, by any other word would smell as sweet…” paraphrased from Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2, Lines 33 – 49.

Recently, I have had the feeling that my aphasia is kicking up again. After more than six months of no headaches and the luxury of having ideas and words flowing almost as easily as they did before my TBIs in 2009, I have very recently hit a dry spell. During the past several weeks, I have found myself in numerous situations where I can’t find the word that I am seeking. Draft after draft finds its way into the trash bin of my computer or the wastebasket in my office. What a waste of time and paper! What’s been just as disappointing and disconcerting is that these spells have coincided with an increase in the number of health concerns. I have started having problems with my right knee (the one that is my original knee; not the replacement knee), a recurrence of extended headaches, and an all-out war with increasing fatigue and my new BIPAP. It seems that I am heading back to the place I was immediately before my knee replacement surgery. There has been no decrease in the generation of new ideas. I am just having to fight to find the right words to communicate the ideas that I clearly see in my head. I can’t write or talk without words.

Through thoughtful and helpful conversations with several friends about my recurring difficulties with words, I have isolated two conditions that I believe are my biggest problems. How is someone with a mild case of aphasia suppose to convey his ideas meaningfully when he finds himself fighting against a double edged sword? The first source of difficulty is strictly internal. With a slicing forehand, the first swipe of the sword attempts to destroy my ability to communicate. How am I to communicate when words that I have used my entire life suddenly disappear? I stubbornly search but I can’t find them in the crevices of my mind? If you will look at one of my earliest posts Words Are More Like Cats Than Dogs (December, 2010), I used a metaphor involving dogs and cats to describe how some words were easily recalled like dogs, while others were as stubborn as cats and just would not come to me. In another early post, Gazing into the Abyss; a Deux (November 2011), I described the hard work of searching for words was very similar to the process of digging for coal on one’s hands and knees, in the deep recesses of a mine. However at the end of the shift, I come out of the mine with an empty coal cart.

The second source of difficulty is primarily external. Even when I find a word that seems right to me, I find it no longer means what I thought it did. Thinking back on my target shooting and hunting days, almost all of the time, stationary targets were easier marks to hit. It becomes much more difficult when the words start acting like moving targets. If the first edge of the sword is battling lost words in my head, then the second edge of the sword strikes me on a backhand swing. The words that do pop into my head no longer have the same meanings and connotations as when I first encountered them. I know that this is not a new phenomenon. The meanings of words have evolved for centuries. For example the word senile comes to us from the Latin senex, meaning “old age.” In ancient Rome, the Senate was the group of wise, old men who were the figurehead government of the empire. The Senate, after careful and considerable deliberations, approved or vetoed laws legislated by the Populous Council of citizens of Rome. Thus by the 14th Century, senile was introduced into the English language as an adjective that simply meant “aged” or “mature.” In those terms, “a senile, old man” is actually a redundancy. In today’s English, senile carries the connotation of having lost cognitive ability. In this sense, senility can kick in at any chronological age. As is the case with many things in today’s world, the rate of change of meanings seems to be increasing exponentially. How do you find the right word when its meaning changes almost daily? It’s like throwing darts at a moving target, while you’re moving also. Even though our character below is right on top of the target, he is still having trouble hitting the bull’s eye.

Fighting this double edged sword is compounding my difficulties in successfully communicating the myriad of ideas that keep flooding into my head. I found myself having to hammer out a message like the famous smithy from the 1840 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem, “The Village Blacksmith”

Under a spreading chestnut tree
The village smithy stands;
The smith, a mighty man is he,
With large and sinewy hands;
And the muscles of his brawny arms
Are strong as iron bands.

His hair is crisp, and black, and long,
His face is like the tan;
His brow is wet with honest sweat,
He earns what’er he can,
And looks the whole world in the face,
For he owes not any man.

Week in, week out, from morn till night,
You can hear the bellows blow;
You can hear him swing his might sledge,
With measure beat and slow,
Like a sexton ringing the village bell,
When the evening sun is low.

And children coming home from school
Look in the open door;
They love to see the flaming forge,
And hear the bellows roar.
And catch the flaming sparks that fly
Like chaff from a threshing floor.

He goes on Sunday to the church,
And sits among his boys;
He hears the parson pray and preach,
He hears his daughter’s voice,
Singing in the choir,
And it makes his heart rejoice.

It sounds to him like his mother’s voice,
Singing in Paradise!
He needs must think of her once more,
How in the grave she lies;
And with his hard, rough hands he wipes
A tear out of his eyes.

Toilng, — rejoicing, — sorrowing,
Onward in life he goes;
Each morning sees some task begin,
Each evening sees it close;
Something attempted, something done,
Has earned his night’s repose.

Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,
For the lesson thou has taught!
Thus at the flaming forge of life
Our fortunes must be wrought;
Thus on its sounding anvil shaped
Each burning deed and thought.

Many of life’s important lessons are found in these 8 stanzas, 48 lines and 286 words. We find the physical and spiritual aspects of mankind. We find the human feelings of joy, sadness, exhaustion, and love. We find the virtues of hard work, honesty, humbleness, plainness, strength, perseverance, and stability. The blacksmith is a role model to the whole village, but especially the children. In the face of a multitude of competing forces, he balances his commitments to work, family, and community. The blacksmith is the symbolic “every man.” He stands as the iconic craftsman, standing upright before the onslaught of the coming industrial age. In the face of the inevitable, Longfellow wanted to make sure that we did not forget the agricultural age that birthed his current age. The smithy’s forge is a precursor to the steel furnaces of the 20th Century cities, spewing out the sparks of modernization. The community feel of the village stands in stark contrast to the rash of social isolation that is rampant in the sprawling cities that would soon develop. This poem is an American history and sociology lesson that all of us should remember and take to heart.

October 12, 2016 By B. Baylis Leave a Comment

Broken Business Model of American Higher Education, Part VII: Exponential Growth Will Require Disruptive Action

In the most recent post of this series, Broken Model of American Higher Education, Part VI: Incremental Growth Will Not Be Enough, I left American Higher Education (AHE) hanging on the edge of a cliff by its fingernails. In that post, I claimed that American higher education will need exponential growth to meet the demands and expectations of those in the economic, political and higher education arenas, as well as the American general public.

I also implied that historically, exponential growth has only occurred in American higher education as a result of disruptive actions, either on the national or international stage. In other words, exponential growth hasn’t occurred naturally. It has required a little help from our friends (or enemies).

As I continue to fight off the remnants of a battle with mild aphasia, I was using the word disruption in a positive way. My initial reaction was that the word disruption wasn’t necessarily a negative term. Thus, in my mind, I was having a full-fledged battle over the idea that disruptive innovations were automatically bad. I was envisioning a number of positive results from the numerous discontinuities that I saw coming. From what I could remember, I thought disruption was a term that just meant a break in a continuum. However, as I researched the word I found that it has a much darker and more violent past. The word is derived from the compound Latin word, disrumpere, which comes from the Latin prefix dis- which means “apart” and the Latin verb rumpere which means “to forcefully break.” Thus, the word disruption implies an emphatic, hostile action on the part of someone or something. Therefore, I will admit that labeling something as a disruptive innovation is tantamount to throwing it under a bus or on a trash pile of junk.

With that background, I am beginning to see why the word disruption has recently engendered as much negative press in higher education and political circles as it has. In higher education and political circles, disruptions are seen as major threats to the status quo. When you are part of the status quo, disruptions are particularly annoying and bothersome. Throughout history, disruptive individuals have been compared to gadflies, those persistent, irritating insects that rove around biting humans and farm animals, stinging sharply, sucking blood and transmitting diseases to their victims.

Drawing by Pearson Scott Foresman, placed in Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

One of the earliest written reference to gadfly may be the prophet Jeremiah. In Jeremiah 46:20 in the King James Version, we read “Egypt is like a very fair heifer, but destruction cometh; it cometh out of the north.” Where is the gadfly in this verse? In the New International Version (NIV), this verse reads “Egypt is a beautiful heifer, but a gadfly is coming against her from the north.” The Hebrew word : קֶ֫רֶץ , transliterated as qarats, which is translated as destruction in the KJV, occurs only this one time in the Bible. Somewhat surprisingly, the KJV does use the verb gad one time. It is in Jeremiah 2:36, as part of the word of rebuke that the Lord had given Jeremiah for the people of Israel. Jeremiah asks the Israelites, “Why gaddest thou about so much to change thy way? thou also shalt be ashamed of Egypt, as thou wast ashamed of Assyria.“ However, the English translation “gaddest about so much to change thy way” is really לְשַׁנּ֣וֹת מְאֹ֖ד תֵּזְלִ֥י in Hebrew. The transliteration lə·šan·nō·wṯ mə·’ōḏ tê·zə·lî literally means “you go about so much changing your ways.” Thus, this reference is is not directed at the gadfly, whose sole purpose is to cause problems. It refers to an individual who roams from place to place in an irresponsible manner, without a fixed physical or ethical mooring.

From non Biblical sources, in addition to the connotation of extermination or utter destruction, qarats may also be translated as nipping or biting, hence the translation “gadfly.” Another ancient reference to the gadfly occurs in Plato’s Apology where Socrates describes himself as a social gadfly that flies around and stings the lazy horse that is Athens. Socrates was trying to speed up the stalled change that he thought was absolutely necessary if Athens was to maintain its place as a world leader. Where is the modern day Socrates, prodding the seemingly intractable American higher education into action so that it can maintain its place as a world leader? Does the above make those of us who are saying that American higher education must change if it is to maintain its place as a world leader and the agent of social improvement into gadflies? If so, I am ready to accept that mantle.

In some circles within American higher education the concept of disruptive innovation has almost become synonymous with the picture of the heinous, atrocious, and monstrous and despicable leper who must be banished from the clean society of tradition-bound higher education. In Ancient Israel, lepers were required to warn “clean citizens” of their presence and the danger that they represented. Lepers were isolated from clean society so as not to infect the general population with this insidious condition. In the 17th Century woodcut below depicting the cleansing of the ten lepers by Christ, the lepers are shown with warning clappers, letting everyone know that they were unclean. Were these clappers the precursors to today’s trigger warnings, which many in educational circles find aggravating and totally unnecessary?

Woodcut of ten lepers with clappers approaching Christ and His disciples; image in public domain and is made available from the historical holdings of the world-renowned Wellcome Library, the images are being released under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence.

In a number of recent conversations I have complained bitterly to friends that society and culture are pulling words “right out from under my feet.” I thought that disruption was going to be an excellent example. However, I was mistaken and I must apologize to those friends with whom I argued. It wasn’t society that was changing or evolving the definition of words. My mind was playing tricks on me. If I can’t use the word disruption, what term can I use? My search for a replacement has been arduous and without much success. The best alternative that I have so far is discontinuity. So instead of disruptive innovations, going forward I will talk and write about discontinuous innovations. However, I am not completely satisfied with this choice. It almost sound superfluous and doesn’t have the ring of disruptive innovations. Readers, do you have any suggestions?

In looking at the history of American higher education, what were the innovations or events that created discontinuities in the fabric of American higher education? When the United States federal government instituted land grant colleges in the last half of the 19th century, that created a huge discontinuity in traditional, liberal arts education. When the unemployment rate in the United States shot up from less than 5% in 1928 to more than 20% in the early 1930s, that was another discontinuity. When the United States entered World War II, that caused another tear in the continuum of American higher education. When more than 10 million soldiers returned to civilian life after World War II, looking for jobs, that was a discontinuity. The G.I. Bill providing them the wherewithal to go to college was an innovation that created a huge discontinuity that had lasting effects for years.

Are there pedological changes and technological advances that will challenge the stubborn fabric of American higher education? The rise of the for-profit educational sector, online education, and andragogy have opened the eyes of a large segment of Americans, seemingly forgotten by traditional American higher education, the non-traditional students which are in dire need of education. It has created a pented up demand for educational opportunities previously unavailable and seemingly withheld from these individuals. This has opened the door for another possible huge discontinuity in American higher education.

The Barnes & Noble College report Achieving Success for Non-Traditional Students: Exploring the Changing Face of Today’s Student Population predicts that between 2016 and 2022, there will be an 8.7% growth in traditional students, but a 21.7% growth in non-traditional students. The report goes on to suggest that non-traditional students are two times more likely to prefer on-line courses over the face-to-face courses preferred by traditional students.

The Barnes & Noble (B&N) study defined at risk students as students who met at least one of three conditions. The conditions were: 1) a low sense of connection to the school; 2) low confidence of completing the program; and 3) negative feelings about current situations at school. The B&N study found that 29% of current (2015) non-traditional students were at risk while only 17% of traditional students were at risk. This difference was statistically significant.

The B&N Study also suggested that schools could maximize their effectiveness in helping all students complete programs if they would address six key challenges. These challenges were: 1) know your “at-risk” students;” 2) increase access to affordable materials/learning solutions; 3) offer expanded career counseling support; 4) offer services that will help students deal with their stresses; 5) act as their support system and help engage more deeply; and 6) provide clear, proactive communication and information about the support services offered. All of these challenges make eminent sense. Schools that best mitigate the challenges of at risk students will help more of them complete programs.

The one startling fact that I found missing from the B&N report was any reporting of the current rates of success of students completing programs. From studies by the American Council on Education (ACE) and the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES), we know that the national average of traditional students completing programs is about 55%; while the average completion percentage for non-traditional students is about 33%. If B&N found 17% of traditional students and 29% of non-traditional students were at risk, but we know that at least 45% and 67%, respectively, are not completing programs, why weren’t there 28% more traditional students and 38% more non-traditional students at risk? I would suggest that there are at least this many more current traditional and non-traditional students who are at risk. The difficulty is that we don’t know how to identify them. If we can’t identify them, we certainly can’t help them.

However, identifying these obvious candidates for improving the educational picture in America will not necessarily be the panacea to solving all of our problems. The University of California system of higher education is a prime example of more of the problems within American higher education. The California system says that it is overloaded. With current facilities and staffing, the system claims that it can’t adequately serve the students that it now has. If we have more students completing programs, where will we “teach” these students and who will teach them? If the system doesn’t have the funds to hire more teachers or build more classrooms, where will the state or institutions get that money? I have already offered my take on the idea of how acceptable raising tuition will be with prospective students and those responsible for the tuition bills of these students.

If you are within higher education, be prepared for the coming discontinuities. You may even have to be prepared for disruptions. Without changes, we can’t and will not meet the coming demands and expectations.

May 24, 2016 By B. Baylis Leave a Comment

What’s the difference between surviving and surviving?

Reader, patience please. Before you accuse me of completely losing it, I know that I probably should have entitled this post, What’s the difference between surviving and just surviving? However, I was trying to catch your attention and spark your interest with an obvious oxymoron. DId I reel you in? I believe that there is a big difference between surviving and just surviving. For the remainder of this post, I will label these two positions, real survival and just surviving. The difference is in perspective and attitude.These differences are as easily found and exhibited in organizations as they are in individuals. Individuals and organizations can also find themselves in two other situations. The first or desired position is one in which individuals are very successful and thriving. The last or least desirable position is one in which individuals and organizations are languishing in defeat and failure, the end result of which is death. These are the thriving and defeated positions, respectively.

Just surviving is a form of life without the substance. It is the pretense of life without the fruit. It is deceiving others and trying to deceive yourself. It is trudging through the battles of daily life with little or no enthusiasm. It is barely coping when you should be grieving and healing. Just surviving can also be having a good reputation without the positive merit, rigor or results to support that reputation. This qualifies these individuals or organizations as frauds. “All show, and no go!”

There are many examples in the scriptures of just surviving. Jonah was miraculously saved from the belly of a fish, which represents real survival. He then went to Nineveh and preached repentance, witnessing one of the greatest revivals the world has experienced. Jonah went up on a hill overlooking the great city to see what God was going to do, waiting for God to destroy Nineveh and its inhabitants. When God spared the great city and all its residents, Jonah responded to God with a “I thought about telling you so! I knew you wouldn’t destroy this city.” Jonah went from really surviving to just surviving.

But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry. And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil. Therefore now, O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live. (Jonah 4:1-3, KJV)

Paul, writing to the church in Corinth, strongly urges the Christians there to mature and get rid of the attitude of just surviving.

For we are labourers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building. According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire. (I Corinthians 3:9-15, KJV)

The seven candlesticks from St. John’s Revelation, by Albrecht Dürer, circa 1497; courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

The apostle John acting as God’s secretary transcribed two dire warnings to churches in Asia Minor to repent of the attitude and mask of just surviving.

And unto the angel of the church in Sardis write; These things saith he that hath the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars; I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead. Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy works perfect before God. Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee. (Revelations 3:1-3, JKV)

And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. (Revelations 3:14-19, KJV)

How many individuals today are putting on a show? How many have donned a mask, and are just going through the motions? How many modern organizations are neither “hot nor cold”? They have lost their first love. They open their doors each day, but only half-heartedly greet anyone that stumbles through the doors. They have little desire to go out into the streets and invite others to come into the fold. They have settled for just surviving, when they have before them the prospect of real survival, and even the possibility of thriving. As my aunt used to say, “What a waste! It’s a crying shame!”

Rebekah Basinger and I have had a conversation since late March in our blogs about organizations just surviving. See Rebekah’s Surviving, thriving, and six degrees of separation, and Beware “Iceberg beliefs” that can sink your organization, and my The Paradigm of Surviving and Thriving.

Rebekah opens her “Iceberg beliefs” post with the following vignette concerning a seminary president: “Ours has always been a hand-to-mouth existence,” the seminary president commented with a shrug and a sheepish smile. “I can’t imagine that thriving is in our future.” This attitude is very common in small values-based, service organizations. The source of this common, under the surface belief is often attributed to Christ’s commissioning of his disciples in the Gospel of Mark:

And he called unto him the twelve, and began to send them forth by two and two; and gave them power over unclean spirits; And commanded them that they should take nothing for their journey, save a staff only; no scrip, no bread, no money in their purse: But be shod with sandals; and not put on two coats. And he said unto them, In what place soever ye enter into an house, there abide till ye depart from that place. And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear you, when ye depart thence, shake off the dust under your feet for a testimony against them. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city. (Mark 6:7-11, KJV)

It seems to me that as Christians, we often have a tendency to belabor the “fact” to be Christians we must wallow in the dumpsters and live from hand-to-mouth. We have convinced ourselves that if we as individuals, and corporately as organizations, are to follow Christ, we must give up everything to follow Christ’s example. We quote:

And it came to pass, that, as they went in the way, a certain man said unto him, Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest. And Jesus said unto him, Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head. And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God. And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee; but let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home at my house. And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God. (luke 9:57-62, KJV)

Jesus is indeed calling us to a life of commitment first. However, He has also promised that if we put Him first, He will take care of us. We are not promised that our lives will be a bed of roses. In fact, He has promised that we will be reviled by men and treated harshly, just like He was. However, if we trust in the Lord, His angels deliver us. We will not “want any good thing.”

The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them. O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him. O fear the Lord, ye his saints: for there is no want to them that fear him. The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger: but they that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing. (Psalm 34:7-10, KJV)

Real survival is the experience of having come through extraordinary trials, and landing on your feet. Some people have called this resiliency. Resiliency is described as the ability to take a hit and keep standing, or to fall down and get back up. I see real survival as bravely hanging on to the last thread of life by one’s fingernails. In this form, surviving is akin to winning. It may not be thriving, but it is definitely not losing. I believe that two posts, Aphasia is not the end of the world and Epilepsy is not the end of the world, that I wrote almost six years ago express some of my experiences with “real survival.”

I opened the aphasia post with a reminder to myself that the only things that I had lost in my battle with aphasia were “a few words.” I still had everything that mattered, I continued the post with a litany of blessings:

a loving and supportive family;
a compassionate and praying church family;
considerate and helpful friends and neighbors;
concerned and respectful colleagues and friends from more than forty years in higher education;
a team of knowledgeable and caring medical personnel;
a group of individuals on whom I can lean;
a real social network, not a virtual one.

I concluded the post with this statement; “In addition to all these people, I still have my mind.” It was my testimony of real survival in the face of a traumatic brain incident and an insidious deficit known as aphasia. However, I missed one very important thing. What I missed in that blog post was to remember that I still had a loving, caring and all-powerful heavenly Father.

View of detail of Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, Photo taken by White House Staffer, as such is in Public Domain: courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

In my epilepsy post, I recounted part of the story of the HMS Resolute. Although this British warship was equipped for Arctic exploration, it found itself trapped in the early winter ice of an upper Canadian bay. The sailors had to abandon ship and walk across miles of frozen bay to safety in a small settlement that was later renamed Resolute Bay. Later in the summer when the ice started breaking up, the abandoned ship was freed and claimed by American naval ships. In a sign of good will, the American government returned the ship to Queen VIctoria in 1856. Twenty years later when the HMS Resolute was finally decommissioned from the royal navy, Queen Victoria had the warship dismantled. The queen also ordered three desks to be made from her timbers. One of the desks was given to President Hayes as a sign of friendship and gratitude. The Resolute desk still sits in the oval office or the president’s private office in the White House today. It is a testament to the good will between two countries, as well as a symbol of real survival and the will to carry on in the face of untenable odds. I ended this post with the declaration of real survival: On top of all the things that I listed, “I have the will to press on toward that unknown that looks like the end of the world.” As stated here, it sounds as if I am echoing William Ernest Henley in his poem Invictus. Although I do have an “unconquerable soul,” it is not my soul. As Paul wrote to the church in Galatia, ^“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20 KJV)

Since I have been so long winded with my keyboard, I must hold off on discussing thriving and defeat until another post. Please stay tuned for the next installment. Thank you very much. I really do appreciate the gift of your time and attention.