When should inexperienced bonsai growers shut up and let the experts talk?

[Cajunrider]

Mutual respect on the Internet? Um, prolly not...and FWIW, one of the best teachers I ever had was one who demanded respect, but was stingy with returning it. If you're looking for a 'safe' space, the Internet ain't it. Also FWIW, in-person, one-on-one lessons hardly ever have overbearing teachers. Quite the opposite.

Yes we can have mutual respect on the internet or we can have silence. I will treat everyone here with respect. If I receive none from someone, silence is what such person gets from then on. I have no time to engage in any skirmish. I have a post count of three to clear any misunderstanding. After 3, either we are back on good terms or it will be silence.

 

[Gabler]

I apologize for allowing the side discussion to derail the thread.

Nah. This is exactly the kind of discussion I was hoping for. Take a look at my signature line.

So long as you continue to respect the humanity of the other people in the forum, arguments can have positive results.

A dispute forces each side to present its strongest argument, and then onlookers can decide for themselves what wisdom to glean from the display of knowledge.

 

[Glaucus]

Yes, maybe people have internalized their own life's experiences in way so to enforce their own false beliefs. There is no way I can ever convince you with facts or evidence, because this is foundational to how you went through life.
But it is not born out in reality. We just aren't just going to be a little cruel to students because we know they may be treated cruelly in the future, and that cruelty will build character. No good university will do this. Which is why they are considered 'woke' and 'leftist' by many people.
It is a very conservative way of thinking and me as a liberal-leaning European is never going to be able to convince an American of this. But this is what the data has found out.
No one is going to deny you your own struggles, happiness, and success. But they are not how we come at the best teaching methods.

And the fact that so many people in the western world are overweight is clear evidence that people are not able to resist the urges they are subjected to. And more knowledge and awareness on what a healthy diet would be has almost no effect on this.

 

[Gabler]

Yes, maybe people have internalized their own life's experiences in way so to enforce their own false beliefs. There is no way I can ever convince you with facts or evidence, because this is foundational to how you went through life.
But it is not born out in reality. We just aren't just going to be a little cruel to students because we know they may be treated cruelly in the future, and that cruelty will build character. No good university will do this. Which is why they are considered 'woke' and 'leftist' by many people.
It is a very conservative way of thinking and me as a liberal-leaning European is never going to be able to convince an American of this. But this is what the data has found out.
No one is going to deny you your own struggles, happiness, and success. But they are not how we come at the best teaching methods.

And the fact that so many people in the western world are overweight is clear evidence that people are not able to resist the urges they are subjected to. And more knowledge and awareness on what a healthy diet would be has almost no effect on this.

Ah. See, I'm glad we had this discussion, because now I'm seeing that our disagreement is at least partly a misunderstanding. Cruelty to students is undoubtedly wrong. We agree on that. My contention is that the "woke" approach has taken anti-cruelty just a step or two too far. It has not only rooted out cruelty, but also legitimate forms of challenge within coursework.

 

[Glaucus]

Don't you think that today, there is much more to learn than when you were a student? And that there are many more distractions now, compared to then? And many more things to be anxious about?
It was your experience specifically mentioning cruelty. I get the jist that the idea would be that say university has to be hard and challenging and a struggle at times, because life is going to be like that as well. And that right now it makes students too soft.
But your specific example, you say your boss was cruel and apathetic, but just not to unreasonably levels. Maybe the solution would be to quit that job and get another one. Maybe that wasn't an option back then, but my point is that we should make it an option right now. And that we don't keep bad things around because back in the day, they would 'build character'. Things are supposed to have changed for the better.
And life always has enough challenges. And 'building character' for misfortune isn't something a teacher or university can do. And it's just the way a person rationalizes their experience after they do overcome it, with potentially some 'survivorship bias' included.

 

[Paradox]

Yes, maybe people have internalized their own life's experiences in way so to enforce their own false beliefs. There is no way I can ever convince you with facts or evidence, because this is foundational to how you went through life.
But it is not born out in reality. We just aren't just going to be a little cruel to students because we know they may be treated cruelly in the future, and that cruelty will build character. No good university will do this. Which is why they are considered 'woke' and 'leftist' by many people.
It is a very conservative way of thinking and me as a liberal-leaning European is never going to be able to convince an American of this. But this is what the data has found out.
No one is going to deny you your own struggles, happiness, and success. But they are not how we come at the best teaching methods.

And the fact that so many people in the western world are overweight is clear evidence that people are not able to resist the urges they are subjected to. And more knowledge and awareness on what a healthy diet would be has almost no effect on this.

There is a difference between being cruel, (which I am not advocating for) and trying to get someone to think a little bit for themselves. Challenging someone to step a tiny bit out of their comfort zone isn't being cruel. Yes some students may struggle but again a little bit of that isn't bad. If they can overcome, it's a confidence builder. Of course if they continue to struggle, you step in and guide. It is a fine line for some students for sure. It's how you approach it that matters.

 

[Gabler]

Don't you think that today, there is much more to learn than when you were a student? And that there are many more distractions now, compared to then? And many more things to be anxious about?
It was your experience specifically mentioning cruelty. I get the jist that the idea would be that say university has to be hard and challenging and a struggle at times, because life is going to be like that as well. And that right now it makes students too soft.
But your specific example, you say your boss was cruel and apathetic, but just not to unreasonably levels. Maybe the solution would be to quit that job and get another one. Maybe that wasn't an option back then, but my point is that we should make it an option right now. And that we don't keep bad things around because back in the day, they would 'build character'. Things are supposed to have changed for the better.
And life always has enough challenges. And 'building character' for misfortune isn't something a teacher or university can do. And it's just the way a person rationalizes their experience after they do overcome it, with potentially some 'survivorship bias' included.

To clarify a couple of things: First, I was a full-time grad student just over two years ago. I'm 28 years old and therefore right at the cutoff between the Millennial generation and Gen Z. I was raised on a steady diet of social justice, delivered at all levels of my education from my teachers and from school programs. Second, I don't mean to suggest that my boss was cruel or apathetic at all. It occasionally felt that way, but I think that my frame of reference was warped, because I wasn't oriented properly to the way the world works.

I had thought that my problem was my job, so I did change jobs in December of that year. I quickly discovered I was encountering the same problem at my new job, even though my new boss is unusually patient and supportive. It was at that time I realized I could fix most of my problems with a simple attitude adjustment. That's not to say that it was easy and immediate, or that I don't sometimes slip back into my old habitual way of thinking, but even a partial and imperfect transition to an attitude of personal responsibility has made my life immeasurably better.

 

[dbonsaiw]

Not sure when people should just shut up, but newbs would definitely benefit from checking their egos at the door. Personally, it helps me to talk things out and have more experienced people explain to me where I'm wrong or need some fine tuning. I'm not going to learn much if I keep my wrong opinions/practices to myself - they need to be expressed and corrected. I guess the only time I believe a newb should just shut up is when he's arguing with someone with tons more experience and results.

 

[Gabler]

Not sure when people should just shut up, but newbs would definitely benefit from checking their egos at the door. Personally, it helps me to talk things out and have more experienced people explain to me where I'm wrong or need some fine tuning. I'm not going to learn much if I keep my wrong opinions/practices to myself - they need to be expressed and corrected. I guess the only time I believe a newb should just shut up is when he's arguing with someone with tons more experience and results.

I've been learning that most people are either too assertive to the point they're a bit aggressive or too meek to the point they become almost passive observers in their own lives, and it's a good exercise to learn when to go along to get along and when it may be time to draw a line in the sand.

In the case of this forum, I had worried it might rub people the wrong way for a relative newcomer to pretend to know anything about bonsai, when in the domain of bonsai practice, it can take a decade or more to really accumulate enough experience to start reliably extracting patterns purely from personal experience.

So far, I've gotten answers ranging from "Newcomers should speak when spoken to," to "This is a public forum, so say whatever you want." Somewhere in between those two extremes, I've entered a fun debate about pedagogy. Most answers however, have been somewhere in the ballpark of what you just posted. In other words, I would summarize it as something like, "Try to read the room." It's not particularly helpful as an answer on its own, but all of the commentary leading to that assessment should be helpful in effectively reading the room going forward.

 

[Glaucus]

To clarify a couple of things: First, I was a full-time grad student just over two years ago. I'm 28 years old and therefore right at the cutoff between the Millennial generation and Gen Z. I was raised on a steady diet of social justice, delivered at all levels of my education from my teachers and from school programs. Second, I don't mean to suggest that my boss was cruel or apathetic at all. It occasionally felt that way, but I think that my frame of reference was warped, because I wasn't oriented properly to the way the world works.

Well, you did suggest that. So good you clarified. But what you describe isn't really abnormal at all. It is just part of having your first job. Many not for everyone or even most. But for enough people. University isn't supposed to learn you 'how the world works' or how to manage a demanding job that requires an advanced degree. You only learn that by experiencing it. And if a student or as a new employee you somehow has a warped expectation and needs an 'attitude adjustment', it is really not so easy for a teacher or boss to consciously intervene and fix that for you. Maybe your boss was actually a very good boss, aware of what you describe, and actually acted the way they did to help you. But usually, people are much more preoccupied with their own little world.

I have had students who were just a couple years younger than me who to me already seemed to have a different attitude to myself and my fellow generation of students. And I have had some who seemed to make things unreasonably difficult for themselves in a way I couldn't understand or relate to. And you don't know if they are just having a bad day, are on the spectrum, or have some attitude problem. It is really challenging to step in and criticize them for that. You'd have to build trust for that first. My point is that just giving them a hard time 'so they feel until they learn'. is not productive. I could have stepped out of my way, not said anything, and thrown up artificial hurdles for this student so they would finally see how 'silly' their way of thinking was. But you don't know how they experience that because they are also already in their normal learning curve.

The student may learn what they are supposed to learn in the course I give, actually have an attitude problem, and they may indeed hit a wall when they leave university and go out in the real world. And they either adjust, or they don't and are then not able to perform a job that matches their advanced degree. Which would be unfortuonate. But these more meta life or people skills are really challenging for people to learn.

I had thought that my problem was my job, so I did change jobs in December of that year. I quickly discovered I was encountering the same problem at my new job, even though my new boss is unusually patient and supportive. It was at that time I realized I could fix most of my problems with a simple attitude adjustment. That's not to say that it was easy and immediate, or that I don't sometimes slip back into my old habitual way of thinking, but even a partial and imperfect transition to an attitude of personal responsibility has made my life immeasurably better.

So actually your old boss being 'apathetic and cruel' (your words, though clarified) didn't work for you, but your new boss 'unusually patient and supportive' did. You could say it was the 'tough love' approach of your old boss together with your new boss that did it. But things could have turned out the same way with different experiences.
Would you really say that something about the education you had being less a 'diet of social justice' would have prevented your challenge and completely prepared yourself 100%?
Or where your 'warped frame of reference' came from? I don't mean to pry, but since you are using yourself as an example. I just don't really see how your story is an argument against 'woke education practices', if it was at all meant that way.

Failure can be a good life teacher. But deliberate building 'failure experiences' into an education program is really not something anyone in charge of education programmes would argue for. Sure, if a student finds the course too easy you should find a way to challenge them more. But that is only natural, though sometimes not possible because of the number of students and the workload. Arguably, it is better than someone faills on their face hard when they are 17 years old then when they are 38 because at a younger age it is much more easily to adjust. And a good education program has nothing to do with removing the consequences of real life. So I don't see how you can make education 'less soft' to 'build more character'.

 

[Gabler]

Well, you did suggest that. So good you clarified. But what you describe isn't really abnormal at all. It is just part of having your first job. Many not for everyone or even most. But for enough people. University isn't supposed to learn you 'how the world works' or how to manage a demanding job that requires an advanced degree. You only learn that by experiencing it. And if a student or as a new employee you somehow has a warped expectation and needs an 'attitude adjustment', it is really not so easy for a teacher or boss to consciously intervene and fix that for you. Maybe your boss was actually a very good boss, aware of what you describe, and actually acted the way they did to help you. But usually, people are much more preoccupied with their own little world.

I have had students who were just a couple years younger than me who to me already seemed to have a different attitude to myself and my fellow generation of students. And I have had some who seemed to make things unreasonably difficult for themselves in a way I couldn't understand or relate to. And you don't know if they are just having a bad day, are on the spectrum, or have some attitude problem. It is really challenging to step in and criticize them for that. You'd have to build trust for that first. My point is that just giving them a hard time 'so they feel until they learn'. is not productive. I could have stepped out of my way, not said anything, and thrown up artificial hurdles for this student so they would finally see how 'silly' their way of thinking was. But you don't know how they experience that because they are also already in their normal learning curve.

The student may learn what they are supposed to learn in the course I give, actually have an attitude problem, and they may indeed hit a wall when they leave university and go out in the real world. And they either adjust, or they don't and are then not able to perform a job that matches their advanced degree. Which would be unfortuonate. But these more meta life or people skills are really challenging for people to learn.



So actually your old boss being 'apathetic and cruel' (your words, though clarified) didn't work for you, but your new boss 'unusually patient and supportive' did. You could say it was the 'tough love' approach of your old boss together with your new boss that did it. But things could have turned out the same way with different experiences.
Would you really say that something about the education you had being less a 'diet of social justice' would have prevented your challenge and completely prepared yourself 100%?
Or where your 'warped frame of reference' came from? I don't mean to pry, but since you are using yourself as an example. I just don't really see how your story is an argument against 'woke education practices', if it was at all meant that way.

Failure can be a good life teacher. But deliberate building 'failure experiences' into an education program is really not something anyone would argue for. Sure, if a student finds the course too easy you should find a way to challenge them more. But that is only natural, though sometimes not possible because of the number of students and the workload. Arguably, it is better than someone faills on their face hard when they are 17 years old then when they are 38 because at a younger age it is much more easily to adjust. And a good education program has nothing to do with removing the consequences of real life. So I don't see how you can make education 'less soft' to 'build more character'.

Hmm. I'll need time to think on that.

 

[leatherback]

I guess a lot depends on the local university.

The sort of things I hear from the USA side of the story make me wonder what kind of schools they run. Then I hear people on my side of the pond saying PBL is a cost saving method.
Having worked at a technical university for 15 years now, I do not see PBL as cost saving. It is terribly expensive to do proper challenge based research education. And yes, our BSc student do work in the cleanrooms or do experiments in the windtunnel if the projects require it.

I do not understand the term woke, which seems to have a sort of political ring to it. Respecting people for whom they are is just the humane thing to do. It is true that a lot of humanity seems to have lost that skill. Giving someone a hard time because that toughens them up.. That, or gives them traumas for life.

 

[Paradox]

I guess a lot depends on the local university.

The sort of things I hear from the USA side of the story make me wonder what kind of schools they run. Then I hear people on my side of the pond saying PBL is a cost saving method.
Having worked at a technical university for 15 years now, I do not see PBL as cost saving. It is terribly expensive to do proper challenge based research education. And yes, our BSc student do work in the cleanrooms or do experiments in the windtunnel if the projects require it.

I do not understand the term woke, which seems to have a sort of political ring to it. Respecting people for whom they are is just the humane thing to do. It is true that a lot of humanity seems to have lost that skill. Giving someone a hard time because that toughens them up.. That, or gives them traumas for life.

Hmm how to say this....

Woke is a term now used in politics in the U.S.. it is used by conservatives to describe liberals who promote tolerance and empathy of people who don't fit into the traditional mold of sexulality and gender norms.

Sorry trying really hard not to get political here....

 

[Gabler]

I do not understand the term woke, which seems to have a sort of political ring to it.

It does. People to the political left have used it to mean something like "awakening to the inequalities certain groups of people face." Those on the political right use it broadly to refer to leftist political ideology. There seems to be a widening rift between the way both groups of people see the world, and the groups tend to talk past each other. They're not both engaging in the same conversation.

 

[Glaucus]

I guess a lot depends on the local university.

The sort of things I hear from the USA side of the story make me wonder what kind of schools they run. Then I hear people on my side of the pond saying PBL is a cost saving method.
Having worked at a technical university for 15 years now, I do not see PBL as cost saving. It is terribly expensive to do proper challenge based research education. And yes, our BSc student do work in the cleanrooms or do experiments in the windtunnel if the projects require it.

I have rarely heard good things from Dutch people about the education at North American universities. Often exchange students would say it was 'too easy', or 'not well-organized' (main thing Dutch student complain about no.1, which shows their attitude problem haha). The infrastructure and research is a different subject and very very good, though.
And indeed, different places run things very differently. Maybe most impotantly, how long is a course in terms of weeks? I believe we went to the same university, but a decade apart? Anyway, actual research based education is indeed time consuming, expensive, and a big burden on the research group. But very good for the students. You could I guess kinda fit it under the PBL way of teaching, especially at MSc level. But my understanding is that 'true PBL' the way they do at Maastricht is quite different. Maybe there they are actually quite good at it. I have had a small amount of BPL stuff as well. And it gives a ton of freedom to do whatever you want to explore. Maybe the main thing you cna learn from it is how to do group work. Or better, how it can go disastrouly wrong. And how to work with people that can't really be worked with properly. Or how people take advantage of others who work hard. But there are a lot of potential problems with it. So I do believe it is partially a cost or work saving method. I believe it is a reason why some Dutch students avoid Maastricht University. It would also work much better for medical, legal and social sciences than more technical programmes.

 

[Gabler]

I have rarely heard good things from Dutch people about the education at North American universities. Often exchange students would say it was 'too easy', or 'not well-organized' (main thing Dutch student complain about no.1, which shows their attitude problem haha). The infrastructure and research is a different subject and very very good, though.
And indeed, different places run things very differently. Maybe most impotantly, how long is a course in terms of weeks? I believe we went to the same university, but a decade apart? Anyway, actual research based education is indeed time consuming, expensive, and a big burden on the research group. But very good for the students. You could I guess kinda fit it under the PBL way of teaching, especially at MSc level. But my understanding is that 'true PBL' the way they do at Maastricht is quite different. Maybe there they are actually quite good at it. I have had a small amount of BPL stuff as well. And it gives a ton of freedom to do whatever you want to explore. Maybe the main thing you cna learn from it is how to do group work. Or better, how it can go disastrouly wrong. And how to work with people that can't really be worked with properly. Or how people take advantage of others who work hard. But there are a lot of potential problems with it. So I do believe it is partially a cost or work saving method. I believe it is a reason why some Dutch students avoid Maastricht University. It would also work much better for medical, legal and social sciences than more technical programmes.

I can't claim to know anything about Dutch schooling, but American colleges and universities are definitely too easy. I had thought that I was industrious enough because my grades were good enough, but it turns out you can earn high marks with less effort than it takes to merely scrape by at a typical job.

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Gosh folks, some awfully good dialogue has hit the bricks since last I visited a couple days ago. Not sure most of it has anything to do with OP’s original question, nor with bonsai, but it did provoke a chain reaction of responses.

As a former long time teacher in a family of teachers, teaching in K-6 7-12 and University undergraduate and graduate levels, as well as Military training schools, the recent posts are typical of what one hears in all the meetings, conferences, coffee shops and lunchrooms in every educational sites all of us have every been in.

There has never been a ‘correct way’ to educate for all. But there are lots of opinions because almost everyone has been to school and has an opinion on what’s best…. At least for them…at that moment in time in their own life.

Learning in bonsai is similar. What works for one, won’t always work well for all. Sometimes never.

But trying to help others master a skill, technique, concept etc is something pretty much universally done.

So to respond to the OP prompt, “

“When should inexperienced bonsai growers shut up and let the experts talk?”​

My answer is it depends.

signing out on this thread.

cheers
DSD sends

 

[rollwithak]

LOL probably 100% of the time, but what fun would that be

 

[snowman04]

I've been learning that most people are either too assertive to the point they're a bit aggressive or too meek to the point they become almost passive observers in their own lives, and it's a good exercise to learn when to go along to get along and when it may be time to draw a line in the sand.

In the case of this forum, I had worried it might rub people the wrong way for a relative newcomer to pretend to know anything about bonsai, when in the domain of bonsai practice, it can take a decade or more to really accumulate enough experience to start reliably extracting patterns purely from personal experience.

So far, I've gotten answers ranging from "Newcomers should speak when spoken to," to "This is a public forum, so say whatever you want." Somewhere in between those two extremes, I've entered a fun debate about pedagogy. Most answers however, have been somewhere in the ballpark of what you just posted. In other words, I would summarize it as something like, "Try to read the room." It's not particularly helpful as an answer on its own, but all of the commentary leading to that assessment should be helpful in effectively reading the room going forward.

"Try to read the room" is a great bit of advice, but only if you have enough experience to know how to do it right... Being of the older generation I have lots of experience in many things, but not Bonsai. So I try to learn as much as I can from everyone here.

 

[Smoke]

“When should inexperienced bonsai growers shut up and let the experts talk?”​