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Guest
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Matt,
I appreciate your thoughtful response to my essay. You've missed the point on a couple of the sections you examined (more on that later), but I especially like how you took it as fodder for turning the gears in your head on how to bring better teaching/learning opportunities to the web. Surely there's room for that!
Your preoccupation with my phrase "freely offered..." is odd. Actually, that qualifier had nothing to do with the thrust of my point there. No need to get bent out of shape on that point. It describes a simple fact, but it could have easily been left out.
You went to great pains to defend the viability of online discussion forums and as-yet undefined methods of online teaching/learning, but your posits seem to ignore the central point - that it is the context in which the teaching/learning takes place that is at the heart of the problem...
A healthy and effective teaching/learning evironment is one where the teacher runs the show. The students have to trust the teacher and respond according to that trust - or they may find their way to the door and not return. Any situation where the student has to make a choice of which part of the instruction to accept and which to throw out is a worthless situation. The teacher offers the instruction - the student must accept it or leave.
Futher, the students must be subject to the standards demanded by the teacher. In a proper teaching/learning evironment, when I am corrected in a mistake today, I'd better damn sure not make that same mistake again. If I do, I must expect to be reprimanded. If I continue to make that mistake, I must expect to be asked to leave - fail the course or be held back for another year, lose my scholarship funds, etc... (in other words, I'm not doing my part as the student - learning and applying the instruction).
In an online forum, we are not beholden to our teacher(s). We may not reprimanded for not improving. We have no trust investment in the teacher to the degree that we are expected to take the teacher's instruction as gospel. We may not be asked to leave due to poor effort and application. An online forum is a mob-rules context (with some semblance of a moderator). It is a pure democracy to a large degree and there is no room for democracy in a teacher/student relationship. These are all characteristics of an ineffective teaching/learning environment.
You examine and comment as follows:
My words: Bonsai, however, is not the kind of field of endeavor that usually results in a lucrative career. Therefore, it makes less sense to go to the effort and expense of a formal education in order to obtain a high degree of skill and understanding of bonsai art and science. Most of us are just hobbyists and do just fine with tips and advice, thank you very much. We generally have no need for much more.
Your observations: "Accepting this as true, what does it mean in the context of the entire editorial piece? That to many of us the thesis or the practical limitations of the online discussion forum heretofor amplified are irrelevant to most enthusiast readers? It's like the author picked up a bucket of cold water and doused himself or the audience. But why? It comes across to me as a bit condescendingly sarcastic. I don't know how it was intended, but it comes off that way."
I can't understand why. However, this section was what I deem to be utterly needless - I hated to include it. The reason I included it in the piece was to cover my butt. If I had not, many here would have made the inaccurate and idiotic accusation that I am merely championing elitism in bonsai, because "I don't need to be a master! I'm just having fun! You say that if I'm not a master, I'm crap? Well that's stupid and so are you!" See, this would be an inaccurate characterization of my essay, but it would have happened anyway. Oh, wait! I did happen!" ;-) Yes, this was my way of making sure that readers understand that I recognize that most of us have no desire to become one of the world's top bonsai artists. The futher point that logically follows is that we must then not expect to acquire the skills possessed by the top artists from the only mildly effective learning opportunities we choose to pursue.
In the end, I'm glad that you're directing your thoughts toward ways to improve and build online teaching/learning opportunities. I hope, however, that in this process you keep in mind the inherent contextual problems presented by most online venues and then work to mitigate them. A program without firm standards - and consequences for not meeting those standards - is a poor program. I look forward to seeing what you can devise.
Kind regards,
Andy Rutledge
zone 8, Texas
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