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Near Disaster Adverted

After this weekend, I may be off-line for the better part of a week or maybe more. On Tuesday, I am having a pacemaker implanted. My cardiologist finally said, “it is time to fish or cut bait”. The invention of an MRI compatible pacemaker and a near disaster this past Sunday made the decision to go ahead with the pacemaker easy. For the first time in months, I had what could be clearly identified as a seizure. Although the seizure itself was very mild, the results frightened my wife. We were ready to go to church, when I remembered that I had left my  ideas notebook that I try to carry at all times (because I never know when I will get an idea).  upstairs on our head board. So I went upstairs to get it. Our bed is located in a small alcove in our bedroom. So I walked between the bed and the outside wall up to the head board. I picked my notebook and pens and put them in my shirt pocket. When, I turn around and start to walk back to the foot of the bed, I found that I couldn’t walk. All I could do was shuffle my feet which is not atypical of Parkinson’s patients. As I slowly approached the foot of the bed, I stopped shuffling because my right foot wouldn’t move at all. In frustration in a moment of an imposed application of will, I forced my right foot to move. With that exertion, I lost my balance and started to fall backwards. In that fall I sat in our second story bedroom widow breaking the glass. I grabbed the window frame so that I didn’t go all the way through the window. My wife, Elaine,  heard the glass break and yelled, “What did you do?” I yelled back, ”I broke a window.” By that time Elaine was running up the stairs yelling, “How did you do that?” All I could think of was to say, “I sat in the window.” To which Elaine asked, “You did what?” I couldn’t think of anything quick enough to respond to her, so she kept yelling, “Are you okay?” I didn’t say anything, but waited until she got to our bedroom. She looked at me sitting in the window with my hands still gripping the window frame and she yelled, “What happened.” I tried to calmly explain what had happened. Now that I reflect on this scene, according to the TV commercial, this would have been a perfect time for a Twix to give me time to think of a good answer that I didn’t have on the spur of the moment.

Elaine went about cleaning up the mess on the window sill and floor. Apparently our mini-blinds and my Sunday clothes kept me from getting cut by the chards of glass that were everywhere. Since this occurred on a Sunday morning and it has rained or snowed every day since, we now have a boarded up window in our bedroom until we can have someone come and put in a new window pane.  In our old house with its old windows, the glazing is on the exterior side of frame, so the glass pane must be installed from the exterior. The boarded up window is a constant  reminder to  us of God’s care.

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Relief Through Reading – Part II

For my first excursion after many years into what I thought would be recreational reading, I chose a book I saw on the New York Times Best Sellers List that sounded interesting. It was a novel by Emma Donoghue, entitled “Room.”

If recreational reading is reading for fun and enjoyment, it is hard for me to call “Room” recreational reading. However, I have to label it recreational reading in my taxonomy, because it definitely isn’t informational or work-related, at least at first glance. I will explain this a little later in this posting.

After getting started on the book, I found myself having a hard time putting it down. I found myself mimicking my wife, reading for hour after hour, trying to either get through the book or at least to a good stopping point. When I finished the book, I returned the favor to my wife by telling her, “You’ve really got to read this book. It will disturb you, but you will like it.”

Since we had gotten the book from our local library and there was a long list of people who had reserved it. My wife picked it up immediately and finished it before we had to return the book to the library. My wife admitted that it did disturb her, but that she liked it so much she recommended the book to her book club as a future choice for a book of the month.

The story line of the book revolves around a five-year-old boy named Jack who has lived his entire life in an 11×11 room with his mother. They are captives of a deranged individual who abducted Jack’s mother when she was a teenager and imprisoned her in this specially constructed room that had one door and only one window, a skylight. For more than eight years ‘Ol Nick’ would come in the room at least once a week to bring food and molest the frightened young woman who had no way of escape. Because of these sexual advances, two babies are born in the room. Only Jack survives and we pick up the story when he is five-years old with all the normal curiosity of a young boy, but no knowledge of the “outside world” other than what he can see through a skylight, a black and white TV with limited reception, and a few National Geographic books. ‘Ol Nick’ knows of his existence but Jack’s Ma shields Jack from ‘Ol Nick’ by making Jack hide in a wardrobe every time ‘Old Nick’ comes into the room. When Jack starts asking Ma about the outside world, Ma begins concocting a plan of escape.

As I continued to reflect on the book and its story, I began to discover applications of the story to higher education and to my life. I kept finding rooms that had been constructed to imprison people and keep them from fully developing and enjoying the outside world. Most of those rooms were not physical rooms, but they were prisons all the same. In the posting by Finding Strength to Stand Again, entitled, “Hitting my head on Glass Ceilings” : http://findingstrengthtostandagain.wordpress.com/2011/02/17/hitting-my-head-on-glass-ceilings/,

we see rooms that have been constructed to keep those people with challenges “where they belong.”  In her Glass Ceilings posting, the author talks about how she has been shut out of employment because she is different. She has a disability.

These rooms are difficult to see, hence the name “Glass Ceilings” They are metaphysical rooms, but they are just as real as the room ‘Ol Nick’ used to imprison Jack and his Ma. I know because I have experienced several of these rooms recently. The law says people who are aged challenged and physically challenged are members of protected classes in terms of employment. However, if I were to submit my resume for a job opening that I was perfectly qualified to fill five years ago, I wouldn’t even get an interview today. I know because three years ago I was looking for a new job as a chief academic officer at a college or university. Even though I had an outstanding resume from my 40 years of work in higher education, and was well-known in the Christian college and higher education assessment circles. I had a difficult time convincing some institutions to even give me an interview. I know that my age was a problem. When I finally did get two interviews, one of the first questions that I was asked at both institutions was, “How long are you planning to work?” I told people who I could not promise anything, but that I planned to work for another seven to ten years. At that time, I felt that was quite doable. I felt good and I had maintained a rigorous physical exercise routine for more than 50 years. One of the great advantages of working in higher education is the availability of a gym. Until my knees finally gave out and I couldn’t find a surgeon who would operate on them for a fourth time, I played an hour of competitive basketball five days each week. In life after basketball, to keep up my workouts, I switched to a recumbent stationary bike. In my first year on the bike at age 62, I racked up more than 10,000 miles pedaling more than 30 miles per day.

Paraphrasing the 1970’s hit of the Five Man Electric Band, “Rooms, rooms. Everywhere rooms; keeping me in my place; playing with my mind,” I can hear a new acquaintance that I have come into contact with through the web, say right now, “Be careful. You’re heading into dangerous territory. You are trying to stretch an analogy or metaphor too far.” ‘Ol Nick’ was imprisoning Ma for his own evil intents. People in higher education are not imprisoning people for evil intents. I concur with that. However, to the victims, the results are similar.

I believe that by playing off the metaphor of “room as a prison,” I am using what we know from learning theory. People learn more when faced with a compelling problem and can connect the new problem to something with which they are already familiar. I understand the concept of a room. The compelling problem is looking for a means of escape. It makes sense to me.

In Part III of Reading for Relief, I will explore the ideas of rooms and means of escape in relationship to higher education.

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Relief Through Reading Part I

I am sorry, Readers, but I am going to subject you to a long, round about introduction to a posting about reading. It was inspired by two recent posts by bloggers that I have come to appreciated immensely. I can’t recommend their blogs highly enough. They are great people who have great stories to tell and tell them wonderfully.  The postings that inspired this long post are  Finding Strength to Stand Again  http://findingstrengthtostandagain.wordpress.com/2011/02/17/hitting-my-head-on-glass-ceilings/

and Bended Spoon

http://bendedspoon.wordpress.com/2011/03/03/we-think-too-small-like-the-frog-at-the-bottom-of-the-well-he-thinks-the-sky-is-only-as-big-as-the-top-of-the-well-if-he-surfaced-he-would-have-an-entirely-different-view/

How many of you remember the old tv commercial that ran regularly during  major league baseball games? There would be a scene of a famous relief pitcher warming up, supposedly getting ready to go into the game. An off-screen announcer would say, “How do you spell Relief?” The camera would close in on the pitcher and he would say, “I spell it “R O L A I D S!”

How do you spell Relief? My wife spells it R E A D I N G !

I have been a voracious reader since I was a young kid. I recognize that there are ar least three types of reading. They are recreational, informational and work related reading. Recreational reading Is the act of reading to relax or escape. Informational reading is the act of reading to gain information or knowledge about a topic of interest not directly related to your work. Work related reading is the act of reading of material directly related to your work.

My wife and I are both aged-challenged. (We’re both eligible for Medicare this year. Please don’t tell her, I’ve told you how old she is.) We’ve been married for over 40 years and have known each other for almost 60 years. For all of those years, we’ve been readers, Although I must admit our reading habits are very different. My wife has always been a recreational and informational reader. She has always had two or three books in which she deeply engaged. Much of her recreational reading has included authors like Janette Oke, Terri Blackstock, Ted Dekker, or Frank Peretti. She also enjoys biographies and autobiographies. Her tastes in informational reading have centered on inspiration books like “Fear Not Tomorrow, God is Already There” by Ruth Graham or “Purpose Drive Life” by Rick Warren.

I have always been a voracious reader, but generally, “it had to have a purpose.” Since I have been in higher education all of my adult life, I have always owned a large collection of books. While I was in high school, my parents bought me the entire set of “Great Books of the Western World.” I set still have those classics, along with all the required readings from my college literature courses. I never sold a college text book or required reading after a course was over.  Most of my other books are work related. Although I have some informational books that you would find in the “How –to” or Religious sections of Barnes and Noble. The How to Books were bought to help me with my latest DIY project. The religious books were to help me with a theme for the latest adult Sunday School lesson or a sermon that I was preparing. To borrow a phrase from Rick Warren and use it out of his context, my reading has almost always been  “purpose driven.”

For years, my wife would chide me with the comment, “Why don’t you read something for fun?” I would reply, “I don’t have time for that.” Her response was “Try it, you may find that you like it.” My response back to her was, “The time that I want to dedicate to fun is better spent antiquing, exercising or doing DIY projects  like remodeling rooms, insulating and putting vinyl siding on our old house, adding a deck, or enclosing our back porch.

Occasionally, I would watch sporting events like basketball, baseball or automotive races on television. My wife and I also both like to watch new segments of “This Old House” or “Antiques Road Show.” We would take this last passion one step further by trying to find unexplored antique shops and digging through them for undiscovered treasures. Those things were fun. Fortunately for me, my wife also suffered from the DIY and antiquing viruses. We spent many weekends together trying to satisfy the cravings that those bugs would cause. If we were not at home working on the latest DIY project, we would be on a road trip to find one more of those unexplored antique shops.

On a Saturday when we didn’t have a pressing DIY project hanging over our heads we would get up early, and tell our college-age daughters that we were going for a ride. The girls would glance at each other, and one would say, “We’ll see you tomorrow afternoon.” Many times they were right. After finding an unexplored antique shop and digging through it until closing time, we would find a nice restaurant and a cute inn or motel and spend the night.

On each of these trips, I did most of the driving and my wife would pass the time in the car reading one more fascinating chapter of her latest engrossing novel or biography. Every once in awhile she would stop reading and say to me, “You really should read this book, you would really enjoy it.” I would pause for a moment then in all seriousness say, “I can’t right now, I’m driving.” My wife would sigh and say, ”I didn’t mean right at this moment. What about this coming week?” I would respond by saying “I have some work that must get done this coming week and all my reading will have to center on that job.”  She would sign again and go back to her reading. I guess she almost figured out that I was a lost cause, until she came up with a brilliant idea. She went to the local library and checked out some audio books, so on our next road trip, we both listened to someone read those books  to us. Using this technique, we read Mitch Album’s “Tuesdays with Morrie” and several John Gresham novels, including “The Client” and “The Rain Maker” plus a number of cat mysteries. I must admit the audio books did help to make the miles go more smoothly. Although I can’t remember the titles or the authors, other than Album and Gresham, I do remember most of the story-lines and I will also admit that this was a fun way to read.

All of this changed for us on March 16, 2009. For those of you who are unfamiliar with my story check back to some of my early postings. On that date I had what appeared to be a stroke. However, it wasn’t a stroke, a blood vessel in a benign tumor attached to my brain exploded (surgeon’s word) and the tumor imploded (again surgeon’s word)  creating all the symptoms of a stroke. After the removal of  the remains of a dead tumor, I have battled balance issues, fatique, aphasia, epilepsy and most recently Parkinson’s disease. I took a medically induced break from my life as an academic administrator, first on disability and now officially on retirement. Supposedly that should give me more time to read. I will tell that part of the story in Relief Through Reading, Parts II through V. In these posts, I will also share how Finding Strength and Bended Spoons have inspired me to expand my reading list somewhat, read  more and write about it.

As indicated above on March 16, 2009, I was introduced to a new phase in my life that supoosedly  should give me more time for reading, but I must admit that old habits die hard. It has taken me two years to get to the point where I can pick me a book and almost read it just for fun. However, instead of throwing open my reading list to many more recreational reading books, I have taken up more informational  reading. I have dropped the DIY readings and picked up readings about neurological dysfunctions, such as “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat” by Oliver Sacks and ‘ My Stroke of Insight” by Jill Taylor, and higher education like Charles Murrays’ “Real Education” or Mike Rose’s “Lives on the Boundary.”.  The neuologiacl books are helping me understand what I am going through and what I can expect ahead of me. The higher education books are keeping me in touch with the academy. The next three books on my reading list are “Awakenings” by Sacks, “Always Looking Up” by Michael J. Fox, and “Reading in the Brain” by Stanislas Dehaene.

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Living with Epilepsy, Aphasia and Parkinson’s is like Happy Hour at a Nascar race

Sometimes I feel that living with aphasia, epilepsy and Parkinson’s is like driving a NASCAR race car. No, I’m not talking about living in the fast lane, going 200 miles per hour. I am thinking more  about what goes on during “Happy Hour.” For those not familiar with NASCAR terminology, at most races between qualifying, where the starting positions for the race are fixed, and the race itself, there is one final time of practice that is called “Happy Hour.”  For those of us with aphasia, epilepsy and Parkinson’s, sometimes I think it would be nice to have  a Happy Hour when we could run through a practice and find out where we operate best before going out in the race of life.

 Why is this practice time called “Happy Hour?” First of all, it usually lasts one hour. That part makes sense. Why happy? For many of the drivers and crews that work on the cars it is not necessarily a “happy” time. However, since it is the last time that teams can see how their cars and drivers are going to react to racing conditions on the given track, it is a frenzied time. Drivers try different lines (in racing terminology, normally called “grooves”) to see where on the track their cars can get around the track the fastest. Since many tracks are not flat, but highly banked, contrary to general intuition the fastest way around a track is not always the shortest distant around the track. Sometimes the fastest way around the track is actually the longest way around, where you drive as close to the outside wall as you can. If you do this correctly the combination of centripetal force and friction between the car’s tires and the track’s surface helps hold the car in place and you don’t have to use your brakes as much if you were running at the bottom of the track, and you can maintain full speed all the way around the track. Sometimes drivers will find because of the way their cars react to track conditions, the best line for them is the high line on two curves, and the bottom line on the other two curves. Happy Hour is the time when you can try these things out. If you watch Happy Hour on television, this is what the announcers are indicating when they say the drivers are moving all over the track. They are trying different lines to see which one is best for them in each part of the track.

 It would be nice for those of us with aphasia, epilepsy or Parkinson’s to be able to try different lines on the track of life to see which line works best for us.

 Happy Hour is also the last time before the race that the driver can communicate operational problems to the crew. The following are two hypothetical conversations between a driver and a crew chief during happy hour. 

         CREW CHIEF:  What’s wrong with the car? You’ve slowed down noticeably on the last two laps.

         DRIVER: This car is a piece of junk. It won’t turn going into or coming out of the corners.

         CREW CHIEF: Bring it in and we’ll change tires, spring rubbers and adjust the sway bar

         DRIVER:  Okay, I’m coming in next lap.

The driver brings the car into the pits area and the pit crew changes tires (Cars normally operate best on new tires); spring rubbers (taking out or putting in spring wedges between the coils in the suspension springs will change how the car reacts in the corners of the track, or adjusting the sway bar which change how well the front end and the rear end of the car are coordinated as they go around corners). This is similar to a medical team adjusting medication to help improve performance. 

Second hypothetical conversation over the two-way radio in the car:

         CREW CHIEF: What’s wrong with the car now? You were the slowest car on the track that last lap.

         DRIVER: I don’t know. The engine feels like it is missing (slang for one or more spark plugs is not firing).

         CREW CHIEF: Okay bring the car into the garage and we’ll run the diagnostics on the engine.

         DRIVER: Okay, I’m there the next lap. 

The driver pulls the car into the garage and the pit crew plugs in all the diagnostic equipment and runs the tests. Sometimes the tests show something wrong and other times they don’t, or sometimes they indicate something is wrong but don’t pinpoint the problem. That sounds very much like what happened to me the last time I was in the hospital for observation. The tests indicated problems but couldn’t pinpoint the exact nature or location of the trouble. What do the experienced crew chiefs do in this situation? They rely on their experience and make changes to the car that have helped other cars in similar situations. What do experienced doctors do? They rely on their experience and make changes to medications or treatments that have helped other patients in similar situations.

One very important component of this process of “fixing a car during Happy Hour” that I have not heavily touched on is communications. The driver and the crew chief (the patient and doctor) have to be able to communicate and understand what’s wrong and whether “fixes” worked fine , didn’t go far enough or went too far. 

Living with aphasia, epilepsy and Parkinson’s can be like experiencing happy hours at NASCAR races. The best teams that communicate well usually do well in the race, and often win.

 

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Bits and Pieces, Part II

I began the previous post, entitled Bits and Pieces, Part I, by addressing the specific question of how do I proceed when I face the dilemma of not being able to think of the right word or not being able to put together my thoughts on a particular topic? The simple answer was I used the bits and pieces that I did have until I had enough information to be able to put together the whole puzzle. I tried to rely heavily on my own memory and thought processes before enlisting outside resources like the internet.

Let me try to explicate the process further, by giving you a second example. This example occurred several months ago. I was trying to write an essay on different views and definitions of liberal arts.

Because I had been working on this essay for a number of months, I had the ideas generally formulated. What I wanted to do was introduce the topic by referring to a scenario that occurred many times in ancient Greece when two protagonists had differing ideas. They aired those ideas in a public setting. This is where I was lost. I couldn’t think of the word to describe that public setting.

So with this information, I went to a friend to ask him what word was I looking for. He gave me a word. Unfortunately, it was not the word I wanted. The word he gave me was forum. It was a good word, and perfectly described the process that I was trying to describe. Why wasn’t it the right word? Unfortunately, this word is Latin and not Greek.  But now I had enough information to go to a second source who knew right away the word for which I was searching. The word was agora. In Greek, it means “market place.” In each city in ancient Greece, there was an open area where merchants came to sell their wares. This area was the same place where orators would come to try to get people to buy their thoughts. So now I had two words that I could use, one Latin and one Greek, depending upon whether I wanted to reference ancient Greece or ancient Rome.

What was my process in this example? As soon as I had a general idea of what I wanted to express, I took those thoughts to a friend to ask for help in finding the best way to express my thoughts.

In the terminology of a popular television show, in both cases, I used a lifeline. The difference was when I employed that lifeline. The first big lesson that I have learned from this whole experience is that eventually everyone will need a lifeline. The second big lesson is that when you need a lifeline, use it!

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Words Are More Like Cats Than Dogs

Words are more like Cats than Dogs

A Commentary on Aphasia

Bayard (“By”) Baylis ?2

Aphasia is an acquired communications disorder usually as a result of a stroke or a brain injury.  It strikes approximately 100,000 Americans each year. It is more prevalent than Parkinson’s disease, but fewer people are aware of it, and fewer still familiar with it. It affects different people differently. In my case, I have difficulty in remembering words on call, and in following arguments and directions, especially verbally. I need to see something in writing to be able to digest it slowly. For someone whose life revolved around the use of words and arguments this has been difficult. The following essay is my attempt to describe what it’s like trying to work with words and arguments suffering with a mild case of aphasia.

Due to a medical episode in March, 2009 and the onset of a mild case of aphasia, I have come to the realization that words are more like cats than they are like dogs. Cats are independent and dogs are dependent. One wag put it this way: “Dogs think they are people. Cats know they are better than people.” Dogs come to you when you call them. Cats come to you when they want to come to you. That is a perfect description of words to someone who is suffering with aphasia. Words come to you when they want to come. They don’t come to you necessarily when you call them.

Aphasia can be an insidious condition. Neurologists call it a deficit. People suffering from it lack the ability to find or remember the right words on demand. Much of the time the only person that recognizes that you are suffering from it is yourself.  You know what you are thinking and trying to say, but you just can’t find the right word to express your thoughts. You go ahead and say something that still makes sense but it is not quite exactly what you wanted to say. Because you are carrying on a rational conversation, the person to whom you are talking has no idea about the battle that is going on in your mind. It is a battle of wills. It is a battle of your will against the will of the words that are locked in the recesses of your mind. Words are acting like cats and are not coming to you when you call them. Hours or days later the right word comes to you, but it is too late to put a perfect end on that argument in which you were engaged.

Arguments are like geometric solids. You should be able to pick them up and look at the various facets of an argument, just like you can pick up a geometric solid and look at the various sides of the solid.  The person who is suffering from aphasia has difficulty in doing that, at least that is what I have found in my case. In addition to not being able to find the right word to use in a particular setting, I have had difficulty in understanding how particular words used by others fit into the argument that they are trying to establish.

The human brain is a marvelous entity. Now, there is an example of what I have been trying to say. “Entity” is not quite the word that I want to use, but I can’t find the right word so it will have to do.  How do words get into the storehouse of the brain? How do we learn new words? That question has been around in one form or another for more than 2500 years. Confucius answered this way: “What I read, I forget. What I see, I remember. What I do, I understand.” Words become part of our usable vocabulary as we use them repeatedly. What is happening in the brain? Every time we use a word, either a new synaptic connection is built, or an existing one is strengthened. What appears to be happening with aphasia is that something is interfering with those synaptic connections. Part of what is marvelous about the brain is that when one route is broken, the brain constructs another route. For dog lovers among the readers of this, “There is always more than one way to skin a cat.”

How am I learning to cope with aphasia? I remember an old joke, the throw-in line from a television commercial, and a piece of advice that my Babe Ruth baseball coach kept repeating and repeating. The old joke is the one about a young musician standing on a street corner in New York City with a violin case in hand. He asks an elderly gentlemen seated in the bus stop pavilion, “Excuse me, sir. How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” The elderly gentlemen seeing the violin case, replies wryly, “Practice, practice, practice.”  You may have seen the television commercial in which an amateur softball shortstop makes a few attempts at fielding ground balls and flipping the ball to second base to start a double play.  The amateur shortstop gets it right once and an announcer says, “Amateur athletes practice till they get it right.” The scene fades out and in fades the scene of a very recognizable professional shortstop.  He is taking ground balls and throwing them toward second base to start a double play. The announcer then says, “Professionals practice until they can’t get it wrong.”

In music, and athletics, it is universally accepted that to succeed, you must practice. In education, there is a debate about how much practice and repetition is good for students. However, research in cognitive science clearly shows that for new skills and knowledge to become second nature, sustained practice beyond the point of mastery is imperative. There are three keys to remember in this statement. The first key is that to obtain mastery in a new skill or knowledge it is necessary that we must learn through practice. One undeniable aspect of practice is time on task. We must spend time doing it. How long does the professional musician spend practicing? How long do the top college basketball teams practice? Coach Izzo, from Michigan State University, is known for his foul shooting prowess and the demands on his players to be able to shoot free throws. Coach Izzo has been known to make more than 100 consecutive foul shots. How did he get to be that proficient? When he was a high school player, he missed a foul shot that could have propelled his team to a state title. He vowed that he would never be in that position again. In his spare time, he began shooting foul shots and would not quit until he made 25 in a row consistently. When he reached that plateau, he upped the number to 50, and so on. When he became a coach, he “challenged” his players to do the same. Practice, practice, practice!

So, practice makes perfect. Not exactly. The second key is that through our practice, we must reach the point of mastery. It is not enough to just practice. I don’t think that I will ever forget my Babe Ruth League baseball coach. We practiced twice a week for several hours each. He would spend the first 30 minutes of each practice session teaching us skills. The next 30 minutes were spent going over skills that we learned in previous practices. The remaining 60 to 90 minutes of practice were spent in batting practice or in running through game situations. However, no matter where we were in the practice, if one of us made either a physical or mental mistake, Coach would stop practice right then. If the mistake was mental, he would ask the involved individual what he did and what should he have done. If the mistake was physical, Coach would stop practice and have us repeat the action. We would repeat it until we got it right several times in a row. I don’t think I can count the number of times that we heard Coach say, “Practice doesn’t make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect.”

The third key for new knowledge or skills to become second nature is sustained practice beyond the point of mastery. The concert pianist practices a piece until she can play it without thinking. The fingers just go to the right keys by themselves. She’s done with that piece, right? No! If she wants to maintain that piece in her repertoire, she must continue to practice it. I remember very well a conversation I had with a concert pianist that I had asked to become chair of a music department. After three years in the job, the individual asked to be relieved of the position. This individual was doing a great job as chair, so I asked why give it up. The answer was very quick and to the point. Not enough practice time. Instead of eight hours a day, the pianist could now only find two to four hours per day to practice. That was not enough to maintain perfection in the pianist’s repertoire. Sustained practice beyond the point of mastery is the key to success in the concert arena.

Time on task! Perfect practice makes perfect! Am I just talking about music or athletics? No. I am also not just talking about those disciplines that are considered practical or skill-oriented. I am talking about learning in general. Richard Light, a Harvard professor, in his book Making the Most of College, asks the question, “What is the difference between the typical Harvard student and the typical community college student?” His answer may not agree with your intuition. He said that the primary difference is not innate ability. He suggested that there were two significant differences. The first was the expectation of necessary study time. Most Harvard students come to college expecting to study many hours a week. The second difference was that most Harvard students spent the number of hours studying that they had expected to spend. Learning is important to typical Harvard students. They spend the time necessary to learn.

In terms of my aphasia, I must spend time with words. I must use them over and over again. I must find new words or forgotten words and use them correctly.  Perfect practice makes perfect!  What kind of practice? I find cross-word puzzles helpful. I find reading helpful. However, the most helpful exercise is writing. In writing, I have to find that right word by digging around in the cluttered closets of my mind.  I must use words until I am comfortable with them and they are comfortable with me. Just like cats, they must want to come to me and stay with me.