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The Similarities Between American Healthcare and Higher Education

One of the most dangerous viruses to hit humanity in centuries has stopped the world in its tracks with a deadly pandemic. The image is courtesy of Presenter Media.

A tiny microbe has turned the world upside down. As of April 22, the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center (JHU-CRC) reports that 210 countries or territories have confirmed the presence of COVID-19 cases. The JHU-CRC confirms 2,636,414 cases and 184,204 deaths worldwide.

How did we get here? On December 31, 2019, reports began to circulate of a large number of cases of pneumonia-like illnesses among people associated with a seafood market in Central China. On January 7, 2020, Chinese health officials confirmed these reports, when they announced the discovery of a new strain of a coronavirus. This new virus was named n-2019CoV, or COVID-19. 

On January 11, Chinese media reported the death of the first victim of COVID-19 in China. This report came days before the Chinese New Year, which is the biggest holiday of the year. During the week-long celebration, people usually travel hundreds of miles to be with family and friends. By January 20, Chinese media reported more than 700 cases and at least a dozen deaths in Wuhan.

China instituted a travel ban for the city of Wuhan to protect the world from the spread of the dangerous COVID-19 virus. The image is courtesy of Presenter Media.

On January 23, the Chinese government shut down the whole city of Wuhan and ordered its population of 11 million people to shelter in place. This action was an attempt to wall the virus off from the rest of the world. But the spread had already begun.

By January 20, Japan, South Korea, and Thailand reported cases. On January 21, the United States reported its first case. It was a man in Washington state, who had recently returned from a trip to Wuhan.

In February, Wuhan was the epicenter of a worldwide pandemic. In March, the epicenter switched to Europe. Italy, Spain, and France reported thousands of cases and hundreds of deaths. Today, the United States is the epicenter of the pandemic.

Face masks are a common sight today in the USA as people try to protect themselves and others from the spread of the coronavirus. The image is courtesy of Presenter Media

As of April 20, there are 817,187 confirmed cases of COVID-19. A total of 45,229 deaths in the United States have been attributed to this coronavirus. Since early April, all 50 states in the United States have put some type of lock-down or shelter-in-place restrictions in place. Social distancing guidelines are also in effect.

Large gatherings are banned. This includes schools, church services, concerts, political rallies, and sporting events. Non-essential businesses are closed. Restaurants and bars can only offer take-out or delivery services. Individuals are ordered to only leave their homes for groceries and other essential goods, medicines, or medical appointments. If you do venture out, masks that covered your mouth and nose are required. 

Empty classrooms were replaced by hastily thrown together distance learning plans. Classrooms sat empty. They were replaced by instructors and students communicating through computer servers. The image is courtesy of Presenter Media.

American primary, secondary, and higher education institutions were all forced to turn on a dime. Schools were shuttered. College students on spring break were ordered not to return to campus. Those students on campus were told to leave and return home. All face-to-face classes were suspended. Teachers and students were forced to finish the remainder of the spring terms remotely. As the lockdown continued, dissatisfaction among the ranks of faculty, students, and parents grew. 

Changing traditions is not the same as flipping a light switch. The image is courtesy of Presenter Media.

Commencements and other celebrations which, for as long as the current higher education crowds can remember, have always closed out the school year were canceled. Most traditional summer schools have been abandoned. Events for new students have been indefinitely put on hold. Even now in mid-April, the fall semester is still a big question mark. These pivots were all huge changes. They could not be as easily accomplished as flipping a light switch.

How many changes are coming to American higher education? What will the new normal look like? The image is courtesy of Presenter Media.

Are more changes in American higher education inevitable? Will schools be allowed to hold face-to-face classes in the fall? Will students pay F2F rates for online classes? Will students reenroll in their schools in the fall or will they transfer to another college or drop out of school completely? Will new students enroll at the rates colleges have come to expect? Will faculty accept the changes to their routines? How will state and federal governments and the general public support the changes in higher education? What will the new norm for American higher education look like?

Hospitals and medical professionals were forced into war-zone like activity. Everyone’s attention was turned to the diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19. Entire hospitals were devoted to just COVID-19 patients. Large facilities like sports and conference arenas, hotels, and cathedrals were converted into temporary hospitals. Emergency hospitals were constructed in days, instead of years, to meet the surging needs.

We don’t know how many people have been hospitalized because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In March, Vice President, Mike Pense, sent a letter to the administrators of the nation’s 6,000 hospitals asking them to inform the Center for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC) each day of the number of patients that they were currently treating for the virus. 

It is not clear how many hospitals have complied with VP Pense’s request. The CDC has not released any reports on these data. When asked, CDC officials only say that it is under review and will be released shortly. Various states and cities have released hospitalization reports. However, these jurisdictions have used their own definitions and the data may not be consistent. 

A decade ago, who knew that toilet paper in the year 2020, would be so valuable a commodity? The image is courtesy of Presenter Media.

It doesn’t seem possible that almost a decade ago I wrote two posts that compared the American higher education enterprise to the four disparate industries.  In the first post, I asked the provocative question What can American higher education learn from the watch industry, the chocolate industry, and toilet paper manufacturers? 

Did I cross the line and say too much? How could I compare higher education to an industry? How could I dare suggest that such a disruption could upset higher education’s apple cart? The image is courtesy of Presenter Media.

In the second post, Comparison of American Higher Education with the Automotive Industry For many educational purists, I did the unthinkable of comparing American higher education to the struggling automotive industry.

In those posts, I suggested that higher education could face great disruptions similar to the disruptions that those other industries have endured. In this post, I will be brave and take my comparison one step further.

The coronavirus pandemic has spotlighted a number of similarities between health care higher education. The image is courtesy of Presenter Media.

The coronavirus has shined a spotlight on both the health care profession and the higher education enterprise. With both industries under siege from this common enemy, I see a number of striking similarities.

The first similarity is that both have a strict dichotomy between the professionals and the clients, those served by the professionals. It is a great divide between the experts and the untrained. In both fields, the experts provide the untrained with specific services. In medicine, untrained patients are treated by expert medical professionals. In education, the untrained students are taught by the expert faculty.

Medicine and higher education have their own ladders of prestige and stature. The image is courtesy of Presenter Media.

The second similarity relates to the hierarchical structure among the professionals in both fields. In higher education, faculty members strive to climb the professorial ladder to the top position of a tenured, full professor. Beneath those individuals who made it to the top rung are the associate and assistant professors, the instructors, the adjunct and contingent faculty members, and the lowly graduate assistants. In medicine, the specialists are at the top of the ladder. Under them stand the general practitioners or primary care physicians, the physician assistants, and nurse practitioners. Near the bottom are the registered nurses. On the bottom rung are the practical nurses and medical technicians.

Bandaging a wound by a nurse or physician assistant is an up-close and personal operation. The image is courtesy of Presenter Media.

The higher rungs translate into more prestige. The higher rungs on the disciplinary ladders also carry with them increased monetary rewards. In addition, the higher rungs mean increased responsibility. Unfortunately, more often than not, the individuals on the lower rungs get loaded with more of the direct contact work with the patients and students.

A cartoon version of a photo of a lecture hall at Baruch College. The photo was taken and modified by Xbxg32000, holder of the copyright. Its use is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. The image is courtesy of Xbxg32000 and Wikimedia Commons.

The third similarity shared by both fields is the primary, preferred mode of the delivery of services. For many centuries, this primary mode of delivery of service has been face-to-face. I almost said “up-close and personal.” This is definitely true in medicine. However, higher education started to move away from tutorials and small classes in the lower-level courses to large classes in the twentieth century. Only a few elitist, high-priced institutions held on to the small classes and seminar format for all courses. Even in graduate schools, one-on-one work between a student and a professor is reserved for theses or dissertations. 

Since the middle of the 20th Century, many social commentators have addressed the fourth similarity I see between healthcare and higher education. The current pandemic brings the same critical deficiency in both fields to the forefront of the public interest.

For some, they can ride the escalator to the top. This image is courtesy of Presenter Media.

The problem is that there is a huge gap in the quality of service within higher education and healthcare available to individuals across racial and ethnic groups, as well as social and economic strata. Certain groups and individuals are privileged. Individuals with economic means have available the best healthcare and education that money can buy. They have access to the best colleges, doctors, and hospitals.

Certain individuals can’t get to the door of opportunity because of a gap, not of their making. This image is courtesy of Presenter Media.

Other groups and individuals are greatly disadvantaged. As a group, minorities and poor individuals tend to “get the left-overs.” There are exceptions, but a much larger percentage of those adversely affected by the coronavirus are the minorities and the poor.

As an example, in a small city near my home, the coronavirus disproportionately affected the minority communities. The total population of the city is 40% White (non-Hispanic), 25% African-American, 30% Hispanic/Latino, and 5% Other. However, in the early coronavirus counts, 70% of confirmed cases and deaths were in the Hispanic/Latino community, and 20% in the African-American community.         

The fourth similarity reminded me of my high school Latin. If you studied Latin, you will remember “Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres”. [All Gaul is divided into three parts.] This is the opening line of The Gallic Wars by Julius Caesar. Everyone who studied high school Latin in the mid-twentieth century was required to translate Caesar’s classic journal. What has this to do with medicine and higher education? 

All hospitals and colleges are owned or controlled by one of three groups. The image is the author’s creation using ClickCharts Software.

The ownership or control of all medical and higher education institutions falls into three segments. These three groups are:

  1. Public: These institutions are controlled or owned by a government entity such as the country, a city, county, state, or an agency of one of the above. The two primary sources of funding are government support or fees for service.
  2. Private, non-profit: These institutions are owned by a private, non-profit foundation or corporation. They are controlled by a self-perpetuating Board of Trustees. The two primary sources of funding are fees for services or the Board through charitable fundraising efforts.
  3. Proprietary: Another name for these institutions is Private, for-profit. They are owned by individuals or for-profit corporations. They are controlled by the owners or a Board of Trustees elected or appointed by the owners. The primary source of funding is through fees for services. The expectation is that these institutions will make a profit for their owners.
The tripartite segmentation of control/ownership in healthcare and higher education has both advantages and challenges. This image is courtesy of Presenter Media.

Since higher education and healthcare are both divided into three segments of control and ownership, they face the same set of challenges and advantages. For decades, the two fields have claimed that the challenges far outnumbered the advantages. Since I am running out of time and space in this post, I will leave the discussion of the challenges and advantages to another post.

At this time, I plan to publish that post on Friday, May 1. On Monday, April 27, I will be publishing a special announcement. I am changing the format of By’s Musings again.

During the week of April 27, I will be previewing a monthly newsletter, which will highlight what I am reading and listening to in the field of higher education. It will point readers to upcoming webinars (mostly free) and significant higher education articles that have appeared in the previous month. It will discuss the trends and challenges facing higher education. Special features of future issues will include book reviews, interviews of higher education leaders, and invited articles from experts in the fields of higher education, leadership, and organizational development. 

After this first issue in my blog, I will be asking readers to subscribe to the newsletter. It will begin as a free offer. However, in the interest of full disclosure, I will be looking for ways to monetize this effort. I do promise that I will keep the subscription cost-free as long as I can.

Use social media wisely to maintain safe contacts with family, friends, and colleagues during this crisis. This image is courtesy of Presenter Media.

With the addition of this newsletter, I will reserve By’s Musings for my reflections on life in general, as well as my faith and health journeys.

In the meantime, stay safe and healthy. Remain vigilant. Eat healthily. Maintain the practice of your spiritual disciplines. Practice social distancing, but remain in close social contact with family, friends, and colleagues. 

    

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Today is April 11! This is no April Fools’ Joke. We’re Back in Business

 

from Presenter Media

Can you believe it?  Today is Monday, April 11, 2016. Winter and the month of March are officially over.  We are ten days past the traditional April Fools’ Day of April 1. So this post and the four announcements contained in it are no April Fools’ Joke. You can trust them. They are for real!  Some of the announcements are not as positive as I would have liked. However, they definitely represent a positive movement that was much in doubt through most of the past year. So without further ado, let’s get right to the announcements.

from Presenter Media
from Presenter Media

This first announcement concerns my health. It is a positive announcement since we made it past March and I didn’t have any new health setbacks. In previous posts I have explained that in each March since March 2009, I have spent at least one week in a hospital with some major medical problem.

However, since last Thanksgiving, I don’t think that I have fully explained to my blog audience my current experiences. In the week before Thanksgiving, I started feeling sets of two or three, very quick 120-volt, low-amperage electric shocks in many different areas of my body. After the shocks stopped, I would then feel a burning sensation at the location of the shocks which would last from a few seconds to almost a minute. The burning sensation would then take off, traveling a nerve path to another spot in my body. The burning sensation would settle in that spot and then morph into a normal type of pain for that location. For example, I would get three shocks, followed by a burning sensation in my left shoulder blade. After a short period of time, the burning sensation would travel up through my shoulder, down my arm, past my wrist and the back of my hand, before settling in the large knuckle of my left index finger. At this point, the burning sensation would change into an arthritic pain, which would last until I could work it out by massaging my knuckle.

The electric shocks are not a new experience for me. In January 2013, I began feeling electric shocks and burning sensations like this is my left pectoral muscle. They started slowly with one or two daily. However, by mid-March, the shocks increased in frequency and intensity to such an extent that my doctors were afraid I was having a heart attack. I was rushed to the hospital. After extensive testing, it was determined that I wasn’t having heart problems. I was having a gall bladder attack. My gall bladder was completely blocked with stones and so full of infection that it was playing havoc with other parts of my body. They laparoscopically removed my gall bladder and the electric shocks immediately stopped. My neurologists suggested that the electric shocks I experienced were what is called referred pain. This suggests the pain is originating in one location, but exhibits itself elsewhere. With that history in mind, my doctors began looking for any type of problem that they could find elsewhere in my body. After many tests, they couldn’t find anything seriously wrong with me.

The pattern of six or more shocking episodes continued daily for two weeks. Then one day during the first week of December, I woke up to a new experience. After the first episode of electric shocks and the associated burning sensation traveled a nerve path to settle into its final resting place, I started feeling severe paresthesia (the sensation of numbness or pins and needles) in that limb or area of my body. When I called my GP, he asked what my blood pressure was. When I told him it was unusually high, he told me to get to the ER. Of course, it had snowed the previous evening and our car was snowed in. Thus, my wife called the local ambulance service. When the EMTs arrived my blood pressure was 210/140 with a pulse of 110, and my A-fib was making my heart do flip-flops that weren’t being controlled by my pacemaker. My whole side was also numb and tingling like pins and needles. The EMTs wrapped me and immediately loaded me into the ambulance for a ride to the ER.

from Presenter Media

I spent the next seven hours in the ER undergoing extensive testing. I had EEGs, EKGs, CAT-scans and x-rays. The ER doctor wanted to do an MRI. Although I have an MRI-compatible pacemaker, it can take days to arrange to have everyone necessary in the MRI imaging lab to conduct the MRI on me. You know you could be in trouble when the ER doctor says “You’re the most complicated and interesting patient, I have ever seen in ER.”   When the ER finally got my BP and heart palpitations under control with medications, but couldn’t control the electric shocks with additional pain and seizure medications, they sent me home with strict instructions to schedule an appointment with my neurologist and cardiologist as soon as possible. When I did see them, they increased my heart, pain and seizure medication dosages slightly again. When those changes produced only marginal results, the doctors began practicing medicine. They ordered more tests. Since two one-hour EEGs provided no useful information, my neurologist ordered a 48-hr EEG. The results of that test definitely suggested that I had brain activity when the electric shocks and burning sensations hit. The problem was that the activity was not located where the neurologists expected it be. This could have been due to the injuries my brain suffered during the several traumatic brain incidents that I have had, or to the plasticity of my brain in attempting to rewire itself to answer the demands that I keep placing on it.

My neurologist also ordered a two-test combination consisting of an NVC (Nerve Conduction Velocity) test and an EMG (Electromyogram), which provide information about abnormal conditions in one’s nervous system. In the NVC test nerves are stimulated with small impulses at one electrode while other electrodes detect the electrical impulses “down-stream” from the first electrode. If the impulses do not travel at the expected speed, then there is nerve damage in that area. In the EMG, needles are inserted in muscles in specific locations. By stimulating the muscles via these needles and measuring the response, any nerve damage can be spotted. Both tests were completely “normal.” This is good news and bad news. The good news is that I have no small or large nerve damage. The bad news is that this means my problems are most likely in my head.

from Presenter Media

As we progressed through February and March into April, I noticed one large improvement in my condition. I began having more extended periods of lucidity, when I could think and write. The shocks, burning sensations and pain have not gone away. However, I am becoming accustomed to them. After banging your head against a wall for so long, eventually you don’t feel it any more.

Thus, I am in a position to attack the large backlog of blog posts that I have accumulated, as well as the multitude of book-length manuscripts that I have outlined waiting for an opportunity to work on them. To readers of this blog, I covet your prayers and thoughts for continued long periods of clear thinking and a bountiful stream of meaningful words. 

 

from Presenter Media
from Presenter Media

Announcement No. 2 concerns the future of this blog By’s Musings.  This is the first posting for five months. At that time, I indicated that I intended to publish posts regularly. However, I wasn’t counting on the difficulties that I outlined in Announcement #1 above.  This time when I say I intend to publish posts regularly, I have taken additional steps to make sure that occurs. One of those steps is to invite a number of my friends and former colleagues to share guest posts. Later this week, the first guest post will be published. It has been written by Professor Erik Benson, from Cornerstone University. When I hired Erik in 2005, he immediately impressed me as a teacher who brought history to life in the classroom. You didn’t want to go to sleep in his classes because you never knew what you might miss. To Erik, history was not restricted to the classroom. He brought the field into the classroom and took history and the students out into the field. Over the intervening years, he has also impressed students, who voted him “Professor of the Year” in 2013. In addition, he has also impressed his colleagues as an integral part of the leadership team for the CU CELT, the Cornerstone University Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching, since 2006.

The title of Erik’s guest post is “The Value of the Liberal Arts to the University.” It is already in the queue, ready to published at 5:30 am on Wednesday, April 13, while I am, hopefully, sound asleep. During my periods of lucidity noted above, I have completed the first draft of post that I have titled, “Education: A Public Good or a Private Good?”  I believe the answer to this seemingly innocuous question has deep ramifications that impact the control and cost of education in America. This refers not only to higher education, but to elementary and secondary education. I hope it will engender much discussion. It is in the queue to be published next Monday, April 18, at 5:30 am. This is an appropriate day for this posting since April 18 this year is TAX DAY!  (This is a public service announcement to remind all my readers of the source of funds for public education.)

from Presenter Media

To keep the blog publication ball rolling, I have two draft posts, entitled “My Life in an Amusement Park: Living on a Carousel and the Unit Circle Parts I and II”,  in the queue, scheduled to be published respectively on Monday, April 25 and May 2, at 5:30 am. The formula, x2 + y2 = 1, for the unit circle is the basis for much of mathematics. Surprisingly, it is also the basis for many aspects associated with a majority of amusement park rides. Who else but a mathematician would see the similarities between amusement park rides and the mathematics of the unit circle, and find them fascinating? In Part I of this post, I will explore many of the connections between the rides and the mathematics. In Part II, I will discuss why they are important in my life. Stay tuned to find out what carousels, roller coasters, tunnels of love, Tea Cup rides and the swing rides have in common, and why they are built on mutations and perturbations to the familiar formula for the unit circle.

 OOPS, I am so sorry readers, but we’ve gone far beyond the maximum number of words blogger gurus suggest for posts. For the remainder of the announcements, you will have to stay turned for the post, “We’re Back in Business, Part II.” which is in the queue to published on Friday, April 15, at 5:30 am. In that post I will cover Announcement No. 3, which concerns my coaching/consulting practice, Higher Ed By Baylis LLC, and Announcement No. 4, which deals with my website Higher Ed By Baylis. Thanks for staying with me and please come back for more.

 

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An important announcement concerning Higher Ed By Baylis LLC and By’s Musings

I begin this post with a very important announcement: Due to health considerations, I am taking a hiatus from Higher Ed By Baylis LLC, and temporarily suspending its operations until at least the beginning of 2015. I plan on continuing my blog By’s Musings, posting as often as I can.

I have been so preoccupied with a number of things that I didn’t realize that it has been six months since my last post. During those six months, I have had to deal with a number of health difficulties. In addition, I have also experienced myriad feelings which combined the negativity of sadness, frustration, burden and concern, with the positiveness of joy, determination, encouragement and hope. More on the health difficulties and the cloud of feelings later in this post, and probably in subsequent posts. I am keeping the website and name going so that I can pick up operations again when I am able.  One of my last posts was a December, 2013 post entitled  Update on my Health .

The seven months since that post have been a journey. The headaches that began in October have continued constantly since this post. The intensity and location of these headaches vary throughout each day. Although there is no universally accepted definition or explanation of referred pain, my medical team believes that some of the headaches are referred pain, that is pain that is originating in one place and being expressed as pain in another location. For example, recently I wrenched my left knee when my foot slipped off a curb and my lower leg buckled. After a few minutes of very sharp pain in my left knee, the knee pain went away. Almost immediately, my continuing head ache switched locations from my left temple area to the area above and behind my right ear and increased its  intensity from a “4” on the pain scale to a “6”.

In my December health post, I mentioned that an October 2013 MRI indicated a new growth in the hole left by the removal of the meningioma in March 2009. A follow-up MRI in December 2013 showed no change from the October 2013 MRI. In consultation with an oncologist, it was decided that the best approach in handling the new growth was a one-shot, mega-dose of radiation. That treatment was scheduled for March 2014, and went off without any glitches. However, within the next two weeks, I had two unscheduled trips to the hospital ER. On both occasions, I was admitted and spent a couple of days in the hospital. The two ER trips were only marginally related to each other and the radiation treatment. As a result of these stays, my hospital admission’s “rap-sheet” lists the following problems: TIA, localized seizure activity, dangerously high fever, unidentified infection, severe reaction to medications, and extreme exhaustion.

Following my second discharge, I started writing a follow-up to my April, 2013, post “Beware the Ides of March.” However, I ran into a number of road bumps and detours. The first was an eye infection which greatly limited my ability to read or write. Since mid-April, my online computer time has been limited to one hour a day. That’s hardly enough time for me to read and answer my normal, daily email traffic. Currently, I have a backlog of more than 1000 unanswered emails, many of them unread. This weighs heavily on my mind, as I am afraid I will begin to lose contact with people and higher education.

The above hints at the reasons for my feelings of sadness and frustration. I have been working on this post for a whole week.   In many ways, higher education moves slower than a snail. But, in some ways, things are changing daily, if not hourly. There is so much reading that one must do to stay current. In the midst of these health difficulties, my mind has not shut down completely. I have accumulated more than 400 ideas for blog posts and essays.

Whenever I attempted to use pen and paper to flesh out these ideas, I find myself needing a reference that is buried in the bowels of my computer. After a few minutes of digging, my eyes become too tired to focus properly. I shut the computer down. Fighting a headache, I try to turn off my mind and take a nap. This post has taken me more than four days to bring to completion.

So much for the negativity. To finish this post on a more positive note, I am determined to recover and return to work and writing. I am thankful for God’s protection and care through trying times. I have had a number of doctors tell me there are no medical or scientific reasons to explain why I am still walking and talking. I may not be back to my pre-tumor condition. I may never get all the way back to that position. However, I pray that I can live as Paul commanded the Philippians to live:

“Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice.” (Phil 4:4, KJV),

or as the weeping prophet, generally assumed to be Jeremiah, wrote to the suffering Israelites,

“This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.  It is of the Lord‘s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him. The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.” (Lam 3:21-26 KJV).  

We should rejoice in the trying times as well as the good times, and seek Him at all times.

 

 

 

 

 

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The Edamame Menace Part II: Boutique Mentality

In Part II of The Edamame Menace, I begin looking at the concept of the Boutique Mentality, a riptide cultural phenomenon that is sweeping across the world dragging millions of people into waters that are way too deep for them.

In today’s world we are being acculturated to develop an insatiable desire for expensive things. Everywhere we turn, we are bombarded with shows of wealth, luxury and exclusivity. We can’t escape it.

This constant pressure is overwhelming families from every social-economic status. Elementary school aged children must have designer shoes and jeans. If they don’t have the latest, greatest fashion, with a famous name splashed all over it, these children claim they will be ostracized by the other children in their school. Never mind the fact that these very expensive shoes will have to be replaced two or three times during a school year because children, in the course of being children playing on paved playgrounds, are very hard on shoes and wear them out quickly. In addition to these shoes breaking down, it ignores the fact that their feet will grow one or two sizes during the school year, Personally, I find it reprehensible to pay for holes in new jeans that would naturally appear through the hard wear. However, many responsible parents will not permit children to engage in childhood play in these expensive jeans. “You’re not wearing those jeans outside to play in and get dirty.

However, parents are not immune from the same marketing pressure as their children. Conscientious parents who want to help their children get ahead socially or educationally in school, get caught up in the brand name frenzy, and buy into every fashion or technological fad that comes along. Every elementary school child must have his or her own game boy and smart phone. If you don’t have a facebook page by the time you’re twelve, you’ll never be part of the in-group or A-crowd.

So that their children do not lose out academically in school, these parents buy the latest technological advances and educational add-ons . They pay for tutors to help their prize children achieve their full potential. Private music, dance lessons, and summer camps for high achievers are in great demand.

The pressure is intensified when the students reach Junior High School. Now they must have the latest, in-vogue sneakers or boots, and the most recent fashion releases from their teen-age sports or music idols. Fads are sparked by celebrities appearing on television. The fans must look just like their idols. So they have to have the brand name clothes. Only the authentic will do. They “wouldn’t be caught dead, in any cheap imitation.” They must also have the expensive pit tickets to their idols’ concerts. You’re not part of the action, if you get stuck in the balcony or have to wait to see the concert on the DVD or the pirated Youtube video.

For the boys who want to be sports stars, their sneakers must bear their sports idol’s name. This generally means it must come from an exclusive and expensive store, a sporting boutique. We are continually sold a bill of goods. “It is the shoes that makes the kid jump higher and run faster.”

This is the American dream. There’s one problem with this dream. It is a reality to only at most 20% of the American population.  For the rest of America, it’s really only a nightmare. Far more than half of the American families only see pictures of this life style. They have no opportunity to participate in it. Their family incomes are at or below a subsistence level of living. The cities they live in are falling apart, taxed to the max, and wracked with drugs and crime. Their schools are bankrupt and in disrepair.

In the next posts in this series, I will speak to what happens when children reach high school and college age. Unbelievably the pressures don’t decrease. They only intensify. What happens when young adolescents find themselves under the gun to succeed in a world for which they are not prepared?

Later in the series, I will also speak about the pressures on adults and organizations, including churches, schools, corporations, governments, and the health care industry. Where can we turn for answers and remedies? I am reminded of the modern folk classic “Turn, turn, turn.” written by Pete Seeger, who relied extensively on Chapter 3 of Ecclesiastes.

 

To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn)
There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn)
And a time to every purpose, under Heaven

A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep

To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn)
There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn)
And a time to every purpose, under Heaven

A time to build up,a time to break down
A time to dance, a time to mourn
A time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together

To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn)
There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn)
And a time to every purpose, under Heaven

A time of love, a time of hate
A time of war, a time of peace
A time you may embrace, a time to refrain from embracing

To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn)
There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn)
And a time to every purpose, under Heaven

A time to gain, a time to lose
A time to rend, a time to sew
A time for love, a time for hate
A time for peace, I swear it’s not too late

It seems to return us to the last line of the Shaker hymn, Simple Gifts, “Till by turning, turning we come ’round right.”

 

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The Edamame Menace – Part I

Please do not worry. This series of posts is not an attempt to create a sequel to the cult classic “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.” These posts are my response to the growth of a boutique mentality that I see infecting much of today’s culture. The title is derived from a New York Times op-ed column entitled “The Edamame Economy,” written by David Brooks.

In his column Brooks chronicled the rise of a new fad in the hospitality industry, the boutique hotel. Even before I read Brooks’ column, I was composing a post I tenatively entitled “The Boutique Mentality.”  This post was inspired by a blog posting entitled simply “Boutique.” The post was written by John Assunto, President & CEO of The Hudson Group, a specialized, executive search and business coaching firm. “Boutique” was a combination commentary and advertisement for The Hudson Group and their process for helping educational institutions fill their C-level positions.

Brooks’ began his column by waxing nostalgic about a simpler day in travel dominated by railroads. He continues by giving the Hilton chain faint praise for creating a sense of familiar luxury experiences that are the same no matter where you travel. He also paid lip service to the discount hotel chains, down the street and around the corner, that provide you all you really need for a night’s stay at one third the price of the luxury suites in the upscale chain hotels. However, the boutique hotel provides a unique experience, usually at double or quadruple the price of the typical luxury suites.

Brooks explains his choice of the column title by noting that edamame is the pretentious name for soy beans. It signifies something distinctive and decidedly different from the common farm crop that is used as animal feed, the basic ingredient for a common milk substitute, cooking oil, and Oriental condiment.

Assunto’s post and ad for his executive search firm attempted to drive home the point that if you wanted the best, you had to deal only with the best. This idea carries to the extreme the logo of Mercedes Benz: “The best or nothing.” This mentality has infiltrated almost every aspect of today’s culture. This constant pressure is over-whelming organizations of all sizes and families from every socioeconomic status.

In future posts in this series I will speak to a threat that I believe The Edamame Menace poses for American family life, religious life, business enterprises, financial/industrial complex, health care industry and higher education.  In the meantime, I leave you with the lyrics from an 1848 Shaker Hymn, “Simple GIfts, normally attributed to Elder Joseph Brackett:

‘Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free,
‘Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be.
And when we find ourselves in place just right
‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gained,
To bow and to bend, we shan’t be ashamed
To turn, turn will be our delight
Till by turning, turning we come ’round right.

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Update on My Health

Friends, it’s been three months since my last post. It’s been a much longer absence than I intended. Three months may actually be the longest dry spell of writing in my entire career, not just my time as a blogger. I can’t ever remember any three month interval in which I did no serious or significant writing. It has been like I am in a boat, stuck in the middle of a lake, and I lost the winds in my sails. However, it is not as if I had run out of ideas on which to write. During those three months, I accumulated a list of more than 200 potential ideas for posts. However, during this period, whenever I sat down at my computer to write, something would happen and I could never finish my thoughts. Sometimes as I started to write, I couldn’t decide on the approach I needed to take to bring out the important aspects of the subject at hand. At other times, I would get into a topic and I found it had a mind of its own. It started going in a direction I didn’t want to go and I had to shut it down.

I finally decided to step up to the plate and follow the advice that, for years, I gave to scores of institutions that were struggling in the beginning stages of assessment programs. I would tell institutions to just pick an area and an approach, and then attack it. I would also suggest that after that first task was finished, the institution should celebrate its victory. The institution should then pick another topic, and go after it.  You make progress one topic at a time.

The first topic on which I have decided to write is an update on my health. I offer this posting, not as an excuse for the recent scarcity of posts, but as a partial explanation of my pain. It is also a request for your prayers and thoughts. The past five years have clearly taught me that God is a God of miracles, and not a God of my convenience. If not for the grace of God, I would not be writing anything. I have had six doctors in six different specialties tell me that there are no scientific or medical reasons to explain why I am still walking and talking, or even breathing.

After a life of excellent health, the past five years have been a long, trying journey. During this period, I have picked up a long list of problems which began with the rescission of a benign meningioma. This list of current conditions includes a mild case of aphasia, epilepsy,  abnormal involuntary movement (tremors), disturbed sensory perception (dysesthesia), organic hallucinosis (sensory hallucinations), fatigue, attention or concentration deficit, and mental status changes. These are complicated by another somewhat smaller list of conditions that I have picked up over the past ten years, independent of the brain tumor. This list includes atrial fibrillation and obstructive sleep apnea. Taken collectively these conditions have complicated my life and forced me to retire from full-time work within the academic world.

This fall as I strove to get my proposed coaching/consulting business, Higher Ed By Baylis LLC, and this blog, By’s Musings, off the ground, I have encountered some additional complications. Since the onset of my epilepsy four years ago, my seizures have been controlled by medication. However, earlier this fall I became concerned as I experienced several incidents of sensory overload, brought about by loud noise, quickly changing lights and my cross sensory perceptions. The confluence of these sensory experiences seemed to take me to the precipice of seizures. I developed intense headaches, became nauseated and momentarily lost track of where I was.

The intensity and frequency of headaches increased throughout the early fall until they reached their peak in mid-October. Thus, for the past eight weeks, I have experienced continuous headaches. The only things that change are intensity and location. I wake up with them in the morning. They wax and wane between “four” and “eight” on the normal ten-point pain scale. The headache moves around my head, fading out in one location, as it fades in at another location. As I wrote this paragraph, I found myself engaged in a metaphysical and grammatical argument: Am I experiencing one headache and I should use singular nouns and verbs; or is it many different headaches and I should use plural forms?

In an attempt to find answers, my neurologist ordered a DAT scan to determine if the tremors were related to the possible onset of Parkinson’s disease, and an MRI to determine if there have been any changes within my head. The DAT scan was negative. The good news from that report is that the tremors are not related to Parkinson’s disease. The bad news is the test doesn’t tell them what is causing the tremors. The results of the MRI were a little less positive. There is still a hole in my head where the tumor had been. There is still scar tissue approximately the size of a dime on my right frontal lobe where the tumor had been attached. Unfortunately, the new MRI showed some swelling in the surrounding area, along with a very small new growth within the hole. My neurosurgeon says that the growth and swelling are not extensive enough to be causing my headaches and other problems. However, any abnormalities in the brain area must be watched. Thus, I will have another MRI in three months. Depending upon the results of that MRI, it could be followed possibly by additional MRI in another three months to monitor the growth and swelling.

I know that God can heal me and I pray that He will do so. However, if God decides to do something else, I pray that I will be able to stand with Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, and Job and say, ” My God is able to deliver me from these medical problems. If he does, the glory goes to Him. However, if He doesn’t, I will still serve Him. The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Please pray this prayer with me.

16 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. 17 If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. 18 But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up. (Daniel 3:16-18, KJV)

20 Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped, 21 And said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord. (Job 1:20,21, KJV)