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What does higher education have in common with the watch industry, the chocolate industry and toilet paper manufacturers?

What Can Higher Education Learn From the Watch Industry, the Chocolate Industry and the Toilet Paper Industry?

Bayard Baylis

Many in higher education do not believe that higher education can’t learn anything from any industry since they do not believe that education is an industry. I believe higher education is a very special industry that focuses on knowledge and learning. As such we in higher education have a responsibility to learn as much as we can from any source. We can learn much from these industries and endeavors. Recently, there have been a number of comparisons made between higher education and the automotive industry and the housing boom. I have written one comparing higher education and the automotive industry that is available as another part of this blog.

From the appearance of the first clock in Sumeria around 5000 BC, clock development appeared to be proceeding at a snail’s pace until the 14th century, when large mechanical clocks started to appear in Europe. For the next 300 years clock development slowed to a crawl again until the beginning of the 17th century when Peter Henlein, a scientist from Nuremberg, came up with a design for clocks based upon the use of wound springs, which oscillated at a precise rate. Henlein’s design of a wound spring allowed for small clocks that could be carried by individuals, thus by 1680 people were carrying pocket watches. Over the next century better materials and better production methodologies, driven by the needs of soldiers for a hands-free time device, lead to the creation of the wrist watch. Over the next two centuries, without any major changes in design, the accuracy of clocks was increased to one second per day.  The next major change in clock design occurred in the 1920s when oscillation of quartz crystals was used to generate an electric signal and operate an electronic clock display. Scientific advances of the 1930s and 1940s made possible clocks built on the vibrations of atoms excited by electromagnetic waves.

From 1950 to 1980, there were two competing camps in wrist watch production. The first was the mechanical wrist watch design. The second was the electronic watch. Several manufacturers decided to stay with the centuries old design and manufacturing pattern. They believed that  they had a loyal customer base who were willing to pay the higher price for a high quality, hand-crafted time piece that could also be considered a piece of fine jewelry. Doesn’t this sound like higher education, particularly residential, liberal arts colleges? What customer would want a digital display? Didn’t watches have to have a face with hands? Why would people want to change? So the manufacturers didn’t. Their market share held up for a while, but eventually the electronic watches, even with those strange digital displays, overtook the traditional watches with faces and hands. In order to stay viable, many of the older, established watch companies had to start making both kinds of watches.  Even today, there are still people who appreciate and want a prestige watch piece and are willing to pay the price for such a hand-crafted watch. The customers who choose this option can’t say it is for accuracy because the electronic models are more accurate. It is a decision that is based on other factors.

What lessons can we learn from the watch manufacturers? The first lesson is that we need to be open to and continually looking for new ways of doing what we do, particularly ways that are very different from the current way of doing it. Incremental design changes will most likely only make incremental changes in results. To make large changes we have to look for significant design changes. Why is this important for higher education? I would propose that many people inside and most outside of higher education believe that we can do much better in the education of college students. Having done the same thing for a hundred years with the same results, why should we expect a different result if we continue to follow this pattern with only small changes?

The second lesson from the watch manufacturers is that if we are not willing to change we may not have the opportunity to continue to do it the old way. What the traditional watch manufacturers were doing was making art. The product was a piece of art. However, the new design watches and new manufacturers were challenging the market share and viability of the traditional companies. A number of traditional companies decided to go with dual processes and dual products so that they could continue the work of the artisans within the company and still supply the loyal, traditional customers with the traditional product that they wanted.

The third lesson is that we can’t always dictate what the public will want and what the public will purchase. Another way of stating this third lesson is that it is just not all about us. We do need to consider the needs and desires of the individuals we are or should be serving. IS higher education ready to accept this? What did the public want from watches? The traditionalists in the watch manufacturers could not understand how the general public would want or buy the strange new watches. Some of them didn’t even have hands. They had digital displays. They were not works of art. What was the general public telling the watch manufacturers? Art was not the most important thing in the minds of the public. They wanted an inexpensive instrument that would provide them with the time of day. An inexpensive digital display was more than sufficient to do that. What is the general public telling higher education? I believe they are telling us that they want an inexpensive credential that will open the doors to new or better jobs. We had not convinced them that knowing how to think would be important to them and to society as a whole.

What’s so special about chocolate? Almost everyone remembers the famous line from Forrest Gump, “My Mama always said that, ‘Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get.’” Is Education like a box of chocolates? It is fairly obvious that we can’t predict exactly what is going to happen to each student as he or she goes through the educational process.

What can higher education learn from the chocolate industry? Have you ever walked down Bay Street in San Francisco, CA toward Ghirardelli Square and the Ghirardelli Ice Cream and Chocolate Manufactory? Several blocks from Ghirardelli Square, you can smell a sweet aroma that you can almost taste. Have you ever walked down Chocolate Avenue in Hershey, PA? You can smell a sweet aroma that is similar to but still different from the aroma in San Francisco. The difference in aromas is not the biggest difference between Ghirardelli and Hershey chocolate. The two companies use different marketing approaches and different pricing structures. They use different recipes and different processes to manufacture their chocolate. However, to truly appreciate the difference you have to taste it.  The difference in flavors from the chocolate of the two companies is easily detected. The two companies represent a truly bifurcated industry. Ghirardelli can be taken as a representative of companies like Dove, Cadbury, Godiva and other gourmet chocolate makers. Hershey can be taken as a representative of companies like Mars, Nestle and other chocolate candy makers. The gourmet chocolate makers do not attempt to infiltrate the customer base of the chocolate candy makers. The gourmet chocolate makers know they can’t compete on price and with some people in terms of the taste. The chocolate candy makers for the most part do not attempt to produce gourmet chocolate. It is not what they are known for. Production of gourmet chocolate would be too expensive. Their customer base would not pay for gourmet chocolate. For example, I greatly enjoy a Cadbury cream filled chocolate egg; however, one of my daughters when she was growing up would not touch a Cadbury egg. She much preferred a Nestle chocolate egg in her Easter basket. Our other daughter was turned onto Dove chocolate at an early age and would turn up her nose to regular chocolate candy in favor of the smooth taste and consistency of the Dove chocolate. To her the difference in taste was well-worth the difference in price, even when she was spending her own money.

Higher education is a bifurcated industry. Prestigious, residential liberal arts colleges are expensive and almost universally considered high quality. As suggested by Charles Murray in his book “Real Education” and a number of other higher education writers in a November 8, 2009, Chronicle of Higher Education article entitled, “Are Too Many Students Going to College?”, the residential liberal arts colleges are beyond the academic reach of 85% or more of American high school graduates. These authors are not suggesting that these students give up on college altogether. They are suggesting that the residential liberal arts college model is not the most appropriate model for them. What models are appropriate? The authors are suggesting the local community colleges and smaller comprehensive colleges and universities with technical and developmental programs are less costly and more appropriate options. These authors are not suggesting a decrease of access to quality academic programs for qualified students, but to use academic intelligence and not economic status as a guide to opening the door to higher education. This seems to be consistent with the historical record from ancient Greece. No students, regardless of economic status, were excluded from the educational process. However, the ancient Greeks were academic elitists and seemed to be very strict in their use of academic ability as a measuring stick. Students at a very early age were evaluated. For those who didn’t have the ability to meet minimum requirements were sent off to the guilds to learn a trade. At about age 17, only students with the highest academic qualifications were permitted to continue to the highest form of academic pursuits, the reflective pursuit of theoretical knowledge. Students who did not meet these standards were sent off to military or public service options.

If we look at the chocolate candy industry, we would conclude that the residential, liberal arts colleges and the comprehensive institutions need to “stick to their knitting” and not try to interject themselves into the other’s prime market. Comprehensive institutions, particularly commuter-based institutions, are not well set up to engage in residential liberal arts education in terms of curricula and pedagogy. To switch would be very expensive and time-consuming, with no guarantee of positive results. For these institutions, many of their students are not ready for or open to the different type of education.

So far in this essay I have tried to use common industries and products to help us learn what’s happening in higher education. For my third common product, I wanted to find a product that was a universal product. It had to be available everywhere. I wanted a product that had a distribution system that was effective, efficient and economical. I also wanted a product for which the distribution system had changed drastically from its original form because, in its original form, the distribution system could not keep up with the demand for the product. One obvious choice is toilet paper.

What is the history of toilet paper? Toilet paper seems to have originated in China in the 15th century. Large 2 feet by 3 feet sheets of scented paper were produced for the use of the emperor to clean himself. Sheets of this size are obviously not practical for mass production or wide-spread distribution of the product. By the end of the 16th century, the invention of the flushing toilet and the improvements in community sewers and private septic systems sparked the need for more practical disposable paper cleaners. It was not uncommon for people  to use newspapers and other written material. By the middle of the 19th century perforated rolls of soft paper became available in the USA.  Paper in this form is now universally available and consistent throughout all of the USA and much of the world.

What’s this got to do with education? What are many students seeking from education? I believe that for many students their most important desire is to obtain credentials. How do students obtain credentials? They accumulate the credit hours that colleges are selling. Many students have questions about the cost, convenience and quality of the credentials that are available to them in the current format.

If colleges and universities do not address the concerns of students who wish to obtain credentials, then students will go to other vendors where they can get credentials more conveniently and more economically. If colleges and universities are to be a force in providing credentials to students, they must find ways to distribute appropriate credentials in ways that are effective, efficient and economical. The current means of credential distribution do not seem to be doing this. Colleges and universities must look to possibly new and very different distribution means, just like the toilet paper industry had to come up with a very different approach, going from individual sheets of paper to rolls of perforated paper. What will be the paper roll equivalent in college credentialing?

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Living with Aphasia: Words Are More Like Cats Than Dogs

Words are more like Cats than Dogs

A Commentary on Aphasia

Bayard (“By”) Baylis

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.

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Adult Autism in the Academy, Living with Epilepsy and Aphasia

For 40 years as a college instructor and then administrator, I dealt with students that had been diagnosed as autistic as young children. For 40 years, I had sympathy for autistic individuals. Today I believe I have empathy. Except for one student, the autistic students were  all hard-working individuals who did succeed in the normal collegiate definition of success. They all graduated with good to superior grades. The one exception dropped out of college and I lost track of that individual. I remember him because I spent hour after hour with his mother who was arguing for our college to give him a chance even though he almost failed out of high school.

Fifteen months ago I spent four weeks in a hospital due to the removal of a benign brain tumor that was discovered when a blood vessel in it burst creating many stroke like symptoms. While in the hospital, the TV had few daytime options other than soaps or health related features. Many of these features related to autism. As I watched these features daily, I noticed the similarities between the behavioral characteristics of autistic children and a number of the faculty members and administrators with whom I had dealt daily over the years. I began thinking, “Is there an adult form of autism besides the severe forms that are portrayed in movies and books?”

After my release from the hospital I was left with two problems, one much more serious than the other. With the help of physical therapy, I worked very hard to overcome the motor deficits that were a result of the stroke-like symptoms. I got to the point where I could walk unaided. I took the driver’s training for stroke victims and was given permission to drive. Nine months after the surgery, there were almost  no motor deficits left to indicate that I had experienced such a serious condition. However, the more serious problem remaining was that I was left with a mild case of aphasia, a condition that neurologists characterize as a defect or deficiency. Literally it means loss of words. The National Aphasia Association describes it as an acquired communication disorder that impairs a person’s ability to process language, but does not affect intelligence. Aphasia impairs the ability to speak and may impair the ability to understand others. My aphasia manifests itself as an inability on occasion to follow conversations and either written or verbal directions. It also manifests itself in the inability or difficulty in finding the right word to use in a conversation or in my writing. I describe it by saying that “Words act more like cats than dogs. Dogs come to you when you call them; while cats come to you when they want to come.”

As months past, I kept coming back to that question, “Is there an adult form of autism?” In searching for more on autism within the academy, I found Tyler Cowen’s article, Autism as an Academic Paradigm in Chronicle of Higher Education. My first reaction to Cowen’s premise that autism has helped the academy was significant disagreement. Having spent 40 years fighting and cleaning up messes left by faculty and other administrators who demonstrated the behavioral characteristics used to define autism, I didn’t think the consequences were positive.  These behavioral patterns included a lack of communication, marked impairment in the ability to initiate or sustain a conversation with others without relying on stereotyped and repetitive use of language or idiosyncratic language fixation on the minutia, and the inflexible adherence to specific, nonfunctional routines or rituals. How often have I dealt with faculty or administrators who had what seemed to be an unhealthy preoccupation with one or more stereotyped and restricted patterns of interest that seemed to be abnormal either in intensity or focus? How often have I seen within the academy an apparently inflexible adherence to specific, nonfunctional routines or rituals?” When the faculty members or administrators are questioned about these routines or policies, the typical answer is “We’ve always done it this way.” However, there were two lines in the article that made me think maybe he does get it. The lines were “It’s not just ‘special needs’ students but also our valedictorian, our faculty members, and yes—sometimes—our administrators. That last sentence is not some kind of cheap laugh line about the many dysfunctional features of higher education.” It may not be a cheap laugh line. But there are many dysfunctional aspects of higher education engendered by the behavioral characteristics that are used to define autism.

So how can I now have empathy for the autistic? Nine months after my brain surgery, I had four grand mal seizures, which put me back in the hospital for a week.  The seizures were most likely the result of scar tissue remaining in my brain as a result of the surgery. The four seizures have left me classified as an epileptic. As much as I would like to get out from under this classification, I will always remain classified as an epileptic and most likely I will have to take anti-seizure medication for the remainder of my life. I am thankful that there are such things as anti-seizure medications. While I am taking these medications faithfully I can live an almost regular life. However, I must carry the stigma of being an epileptic and I must be under constant observation; hence the source of my empathy. Since not enough time has elapsed since my most recent grand mal seizure, I am not allowed to drive or operate heavy or complicated machinery. Should that prohibition related to complicated machinery include computers and blackberries? I have had to give up my blackberry because I couldn’t respond fast enough to the prompts, more likely a result of the aphasia rather than a result of epilepsy.  But if you take away my computer, you have taken away my best avenue of communication. Without the medications, I would be living in constant fear of another seizure. Even with the seizure medication, one EEG’s showed lots of spurious activity in my brain. The neurologist said that this could be a sign of the ongoing occurrence of many mini-seizures, or the prelude to another big seizure.

Because of my epilepsy and aphasia, I have had to retire from the academy. The aphasia has made it almost impossible for me to respond immediately and fully to complicated communications from others. I must study the communications preferably in written form so that I can slowly formulate a proper answer to them. Many times in academic circles you are not afforded the luxury of time to compose a response. In academic meetings and in testing situations in classrooms people and instructors want answers immediately. I have also found that my epilepsy scares many people and they don’t want to be around me, because they don’t understand the disease and they are afraid because they don’t know if they would know what to do if I had another seizure. I still have my intelligence and knowledge based on 40 years in higher education, but I have few avenues within the academy to use them. If we can integrate the individuals with autism into the academy as effectively as Cowen suggest we have, can we integrate individuals with epilepsy or aphasia? I have confidence that American higher education can do so if it will try. I only hope that I will see it.