Equuality: Reflections on Life with Horses

Mutual Exploration

About the Book

Who dares to teach must never cease to learn. -John Cotton Dana

We often think of the relationship between teacher and student as that of a master to a disciple, a superior to an inferior. We consider the teacher to be the font of knowledge, sending his wisdom down stream to fill the reservoirs of eager, uninformed pupils. As I have participated in an increasing number of these relationships, both as a student and as a teacher, I have come to greatly disagree with the idea that hierarchy is necessary, or even helpful, in these relationships.

There is a reason that the term student/teacher relationship is so common. Without a relationship, there is simply information. Information does not inspire creativity, critical analysis, problem solving, or any of the other activities that characterizes true learning. Information without a personality to drive it is like a tube of paint without an artist to apply it to a canvas. If he or she truly wants a painting to have life, the artist must let go of the need to control the piece. Masterpieces are created as the artist and subject interact through the application of the paint to the canvas. It is not the painter's greatness that creates the masterpiece, but rather, the artist's ability to express things he learns through his relationship with the subject.

The relationship of student and teacher is not unlike the relationship of artwork to artist. The teacher does not create the student any more than the artist creates the landscape. The student and the teacher together create a reality that is greater than the sum of their individual contributions. This is why the teacher must be striving always to learn, not only from his teachers but from his students as well. Only by opening himself to learn from the student's unique history, knowledge, and opinions can there be a gestalt that yields something magically beyond mere information.

Many who work with horses feel that they are superior to the horse. They use words like train, instruct and discipline. They are extremely concerned with establishing dominance and hierarchy. They follow set courses to create desired results based on what another human taught them to do. They don't engage in a relationship of mutual respect and exploration, but rather of master and slave, with the horse never being allowed to express his desires or opinions without punishment. In many cases, the word relationship never even comes up, as the horse is thought of as a tool to perform the will of his master.

I try to view my relationships with horses as I have viewed my best student/teacher interactions: as mutual explorations among peers that share a common interest. I try to make suggestions when I have an idea that might help the horse to overcome a fear or could lead him to a playful experience. I also try to listen, not only when he gives me feedback on my ideas, but when he has ideas of is own. Sometimes the balance is more to one side than the other, but I try to hold the sense of that equilibrium in my heart so that I know when to be instructive and when to learn my own lessons. In this way, I ask the horse to join with me, to become my full partner in our relationship. I let myself be his friend and his peer, rather than his master. I ask him to teach me as I teach him, so that we might create something that is far greater than anything I could ever hope to accomplish through mere training.