Serendipity35

In 1873, the St. Louis, Missouri, school board authorized the first public kindergarten in the United States. We take the idea of kindergarten and pre-school education for granted today, but the concept was not only foreign but radical then.

Friedrich Froebel had developed what he called a “kindergarten” (garden of children) in Germany in which teachers acted as the “gardeners.” Teachers would provide the environment and the resources to nourish the minds of the children and stand back and let them grow.

I consider this an early effort in learning space design. The classrooms were bright and colorful with "stations" around the room for different activities. Some schools also provided easy access to outdoor play areas. The classroom had kid-sized tables and benches - an idea that seems so logical but had not been used earlier. 

Of course, the kindergarten concept included more than just the physical space, but the learning space was considered a far more important part of the learning process than it was in the other grades.

In the U.S., Susan Blow was the driving force behind the kindergarten movement. She visited Germany after the American Civil War and was impressed by Froebel’s kindergartens. The idea that children were learning language, math, and science concepts through play was a radical idea.

When she returned home, she made a study of the kindergarten concept. She wrote that “If we can make children love intellectual effort, we shall prolong habits of study beyond school years.” Her father was able to get the St. Louis school superintendent to open an experimental kindergarten. He agreed and sent Susan Blow to New York to study for a year.

Susan offered to direct the kindergarten for free if the school board would provide her with classroom space and a teacher.  She ended up being the director for eleven years, at her own expense. She retired in 1884 when the St. Louis schools had 9,000 kindergartners. She died in 1916 at which point the success of the kindergarten experiment had led it to be introduced in more than 400 American cities.

The new semester is starting at most American colleges and I'm thinking about the silos on campuses. I don't mean anything having to do with agricultural programs which probably have a silo or two. I mean the figurative silos that are still quite real that appear in departments and schools on campus.

I had bookmarked a headline saying that "Facebook was granted a patent to silo group posts." That's about moderators of Facebook Groups getting more leeway in controlling who sees the comments made on their forums. Some have described it as a patent for shadowbanning - secretly restricting who sees a user's content.

My inspiration to write this post came from that social media story, but it set me thinking about education, especially higher education silos.

Silos are also increasing when it come to online and streaming media. Netflix, Disney, HBO, and other providers are "taking back" their content and siloing it in their own platforms. People have been unbundling and cord-cutting to lower costs and customize what comes into their home, but now they mean to rebuild and might need a half dozen services to get what they want. Ironically, this is how cable companies first emerged - by creating packages of channels for you.

A few years ago, a Forbes article stated that "College Silos Must Die For Students To Thrive" and asked "If academics — the heart of the university — do not silo students, then why are student-focused university departments siloed from each other? Wouldn’t student needs be better served if cross-functional sharing of institutional knowledge were common practice within colleges and universities?"

The authors say that the five functional areas of the university that are most important to students are Admissions (including financial aid), Academics, Student Affairs, Career Services, and Alumni Relations/Advancement. Typically, these five have minimal interaction with one another. They exist in silos.

Silos in higher education aren’t limited to departments. They include academic units, athletics, student support services, foundations, alumni, research and business operations. 

Why create a silo? Usually, it is to keep focus in one space and hold onto perceived "turf." The problem with silos is that they discourage interdisciplinary opportunities, which is probably something you will find written into many universities' mission and priorities.

I have worked at colleges where these silos existed. The bigger the institution, the more likely silos seem to occur. For example, you would find IT services housed within a college or school that did not share staff, software, equipment or practices with other schools within the university. In large state universities and university systems, as one example, it is not unusual to find multiple learning management systems being used. That means that training and support can't be "pooled" across campus. Faculty who teach in multiple departments or programs may have to learn and design for several systems.

There are pressures to break down silos. Technology is one pressure. Purchasing power and avoiding duplication of services are other pressures. Calls for transparency and accountability favor structures without silos. Take a look at your campus structure this fall and see if silos exist. Are they increasing or decreasing?

New fields, and therefore new college majors, keep appearing. People used to say at education conferences that when we are teaching, we are preparing students for jobs that don't yet exist. It's true.

The latest one for me came with NJIT’s College of Science and Liberal Arts' announcement that it will offer students a degree option in the emerging field of cyberpsychology. This is a field that explores the dynamics between modern technology and human psychology. It is the first of its kind in New Jersey and is the first academic program in the behavioral sciences to be offered at NJIT.

The 120-credit degree option, now available for enrollment through the college’s Science, Technology and Society B.S. degree program, involves a combination of traditional coursework in psychology, and study of basic concepts in computer science and information systems. The program also features specialized cyberpsychology course electives that address modern psychological issues of today’s technology-driven world, ranging from the psychology of social networking and online gaming to issues of cybercrime and cyberbullying.

“The iPhone, Uber, Facebook, smart homes, the internet of things, automation ... these are all commonplace and have a profound impact on society and individual psychology today, yet they were largely unheard of when the current generation of college students was born," said Kevin Belfield, dean of NJIT’s College of Science and Liberal Arts. “Given our contemporary dependence on technology, it is crucial to provide a focused study of new psychological phenomena arising from our digital world, and to understand how it is shaping our society."

The new option is also geared toward students training in a range of growing career fields with increasing demand for expertise in human-computer interaction — from cybersecurity and law enforcement professionals to app and game developers, to computer and information research scientists, to marketing research analysts.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, job growth for market research analysts from 2016 to 2026 is projected to grow 23 percent, much faster than the overall average. Similarly, the employment of computer and information research scientists is expected to increase by 18 percent from 2014 to 2024.

For further program and course details:
https://csla.njit.edu/sites/csla/files/cyberpsychology.pdf
https://www.njit.edu/academics/major/cyberpsychology

I retired a few years ago and then I unretired about a year later. I took on some part-time work and then I signed a one-year contract for some consulting. That runs out at the end of August and though I have no plans to do any steady work in the future, I plan to still do some consulting and design work. That work is very part-time and very selective on my part.

But what does that have to do with the title of this post? I'm reading about this year's IPOs. Just a few include Lyft, Postmates, Uber and Airbnb. One trend I'm seeing in that is independent contractors.

Lyft relies on its 1.4 million freelance drivers who earn, on average, $17.50 per hour with no benefits or organizing power. That has got to influence the U.S. workforce. This is called the gig economy, shift work, side hustles and other things. Something connected to this that I have also noticed is the idea of having an "anchor job."

The gig economy is supposed to be empowering as a professional choice. It allows you options. You do the work you want to do. You work when you want to work. It gives you lifestyle choices.

Of course, the downsides are no regular salary, probably less income, no benefits or security.

And so, we get the anchor job. That's the other job that provides benefits and stability. But it has to allow for the flexibility to allow for "side hustles."

I wonder how different this is from someone 50 years ago having a full-time job and then taking on other part-time work. My father did that. He wasn't fulfilling some creative dream. he was trying to make extra money. My side hustles have been only partially done for extra money. Luckily, I was also doing them because I found some enjoyment and the chance to use my creative side. That makes me think that there is some privilege involved in this latest version of extra part-time work.

Although making some money is important, the key to the side hustle is that it is at least partially enjoyable and fulfilling. Are your gig jobs ones that for whatever hours you do them you are willing to give up socializing and leisure time.

Why has the side hustle in addition to the anchor job grown rapidly in recent years? Is it the global economic climate or the ability to use social media to easily self-promote viral marketing? Is it because many of us find that anchor job to be unfulfilling?

Learn More:

Read newamerica.org/new-america/policy-papers/shift-commission-report-findings/

Listen to marketplace.org/shows/make-me-smart-with-kai-and-molly/109-now-lyft-public-what-happens-drivers/