So, for the past 20 years or so, I’ve been developing my riding, training, and management skills at a high level. But I don’t believe that just because you can do it, you can teach it. Are there any certifications/training that helped you develop a high level of teaching skill? I don’t think the certification part is what will draw a client base (although I don’t think it hurts), but to develop my own skills so that word of mouth and the success of my students will. Is BHS, Pony Club, USDF worth the price of admission for the improvement/development of your teaching skills? Or anything else?
Watch the approach of instructors you are happy to work with, and try to emulate them. A thorough knowledge of what you are trying to teach and an awareness that many road lead to Rome, are both components of good teaching.
Certification is useful for proving that you can talk the talk, as well as walk the walk, but no certification is a guarantee that you are capable of teaching others to walk the walk. I know of certified instructors who are terrible or one track instructors. I know of uncertified instructors who are fantastic.
You do learn by teaching, and never knowing all the answers, just most of them. And trying to figure out the correct answers to the rest. And remembering that not everyone learns the same way.
I don’t think there is any general-purpose teacher’s training school for riding instructors, at least not in North America. The various certification programs that I’ve heard about evaluate you on your knowledge and skills to date, which you need to develop on your own over the years, and then be tested and certified by the organization.
You might find useful material on teaching, coaching, and motivating through other sports, but it wouldn’t be riding specific.
IME, as an adult re-rider, the most helpful instruction from coaching has been from instructors who can see the root of the problem, rather than the expression of the problem. For instance, a student who can’t keep her heels down, no matter how many times the coach yells at her; the problem turns out to be that her pelvis is uneven and her hips are so stiff that her leg keeps sliding back as she tilts forward. So developing your eye for human and horse biomechanics is really, really useful. I’m not sure where you got to do it! But often those insights are the breakthrough that changes someone’s riding for the better after years of frustration.
I can’t speak to teaching riding. But I was a skier for years and became an instructor at a major ski resort years ago. It is absolutely true that just because you are competent at something does NOT mean you can teach it. Fortunately for me as a new ski school hire, we had wonderful trainers who taught us to teach (as well as improving our own skills). And I received a wealth of knowledge from other instructors. I think what is difficult for those who are really competent at something is to really understand where a beginner or less skilled person is coming from. In our area of competence, we do so many things automatically and they are so easy for us. Not so for the beginner/less skilled. Imagine getting on from the right side mounting, mount facing backwards and riding. Even at just a walk trot this would likely be quite a challenge. But that is probably akin to what the beginning rider experiences the first time. I think one of the best things instructors can do is understand how their student learns best and people vary with regard to what methods work best, verbal instruction, watching, feeling, doing etc. If the methods being used are not working, the instructor needs to have additional tools to help the student learn. Sometimes just phrasing something in a different way can work wonders. I believe that one of the best things instructors can do- in addition to learning from other instructors/trainers- is to regularly try new/challenging activities so they can better appreciate the beginner experience and learning- sports such as skiing, ice skating, snow boarding, surfing, scuba diving, etc. We have so much more empathy for the less skilled when we have recently been there ourselves. Best of luck to you and may you help many to reach their riding goals.
I’m sure there are as many opinions on this as there are stars in the sky but I’m a huge fan of BHS standards. It was really eye-opening on my trip to the UK last month that even the leadline instructors were head and shoulders above even many high level instructors here.
Here we have a crapshoot- is someone a good communicator, or not? Do they have a depth of learning that informs their instruction or do they just come out and have a nice social hour with their students? The BHS standards ensure there is some understanding to why certain things are taught and a direction and purpose to lessons. It’s a system, and it works really well. I wish we had more access to that sort of instruction here.
There could be a lot of value in learning some straight pedagogical theory. “Sport coaching pedagogy” sounds promising! Teaching yourself from a textbook or MOOC platform like coursera would be cheap/free. University courses would be more expensive, but would have credit attached to them.
I want to second this:
[QUOTE=Scribbler;8723001]
the most helpful instruction from coaching has been from instructors who can see the root of the problem, rather than the expression of the problem. [/QUOTE]
and this:
and add that the instructors I have had who really could see the root of a problem well were not only very skilled riders and trainers with a wide range of experiences, but seemed to integrate a deep understanding of the theory with their experiences. This is a personal impression and I fear I don’t communicate well enough to give clear explanation of how I came to it.
Returning to the pedagogical perspective, I find questions and even dialogue are really important for effective teaching/learning. I’m not sure what to suggest to develop this skill though. Maybe a spinoff thread asking for cother’s favorite questions…
USDF and USEA both have excellent workshops that focus on teaching the teachers
Mary Wanless runs continuing education, three-day teacher training clinics, for people within her method. To attend a teacher trainer Clinic you have to have attended at least one regular riding Clinic with Mary. Might be worth checking out especially if you have an interest in Rider biomechanics. More advanced clinics cover lateral workout & jumping also.
Mary Wanless runs continuing education, three-day teacher training clinics, for people within her method. To attend a teacher trainer Clinic you have to have attended at least one regular riding Clinic with Mary. Might be worth checking out especially if you have an interest in Rider biomechanics. More advanced clinics cover lateral workout & jumping also.
I teach school and get better every year because I am always looking for ways to get better. Just the fact that you are aware of needing to improve means you are learning how to teach.
I find that if I keep thinking of ways to explain concepts I will finally come up with the one that works for that student. I also like to watch good teachers/instructors and take what I like from their program.
Other times it is good to be the student. When I am desperate I will ride during a group lesson and let the teenagers yell at me. If nothing else they feel better. 
This is a huge problem in this country.
There are very few opportunities for instructors to get tought teaching theory, teaching skills, lesson planning, learning styles. You have to be proactive and find these programs on your own, and it’s not very easy.
The USDF program is notorious for being a testing, rather than teaching program.
(Meaning that they may teach WHAT to teach but not HOW to be an effective teacher)
I did a version of the current Mary Wanless program in Ca. Before she developed a tiered certification program. Three years in a row in the summer. Found it very helpful.
Jill Hassler Scoop did a year-long program called Equestrian Education. It was FANTASTIC. A group of instructors in Oregon banded together and she brought us the program. A long week end every few weeks for a year. Unfortunately Jill passed away.
Sally swift did instructor’s clinics (before there was a name for the certification), I did three years of those. Also very helpful, but I was so young at the time I probably didn’t get as much out of it as I could have. Also, while Sally was a very effective dressage instructor, I found that Many of the people who were certified in her program were not. Bummer.
There IS a Danish (I think) trainer (Henk?) who offers courses and continuing support for trainers here in the U.S. I think he is based in Florida. I will email a friend of mine who knows him…he’s the only one I can think of who is currently trying to teach teachers HOW to teach, not just WHAT to teach.
[QUOTE=rideastar;8724925]
USDF and USEA both have excellent workshops that focus on teaching the teachers[/QUOTE] Um, no, the USDF one is awful. (Speaking from experience. It teaches people how to pass a test.
Does anyone know if they allow adults in the Stonleigh-Burnam British Horse Society certification program? It would be nice if they did.
https://www.sbschool.org/equestrian-2/bhs/
I would love to see a teaching theory course here in the US. I think it’s one huge element that is lacking. I also think that they need to look at other certification programs where one can be certified as an instructor or trainer, or both. That would be more appropriate, if we could also get good examiners. Right now, in the USDF program, it’s so political and people seem to think that they are great instructors because they’ve been in the sport forever, rather than being tested by other people who actually take a broader view of teaching skills, rather than only looking at the sport and what they’re teaching. How is often more important than WHAT when it comes to testing. One can test a person’s knowledge of dressage, and one can test a person’s ability to teach as two separate things that then come together for the same degree/certification.
Agreed! Since many of us teach students coming from a hunter background or have been started by a hunter instructor, many of us use hunter, or western, or whatever terminology to get a thought or point across.
And many of us have been faulted for this. :sigh:
It’s interesting.
My middle sister’s job is teaching teachers. Not anything to do with horses, but with language skills. She travels the US, and conducts courses of different lengths in different cities, for people planning to teach non-English speakers in all different parts of the globe how to polish their conversational English. She did that job first, for more than a decade and lived and taught English in Prague, Viet Nam, Chile, and Thailand, among other places. Now she stays in the US, and teaches the teachers who will go off to work in those farther-flung places for years at a time.
Anyway, she visited me in AZ two years ago and came along to watch a riding lesson. Not from the perspective of observing a method, just because I don’t see her often and she was curious about seeing my then-new horse and the dressage part of my life.
But she came away with an interesting impression of how my riding lessons are conducted, for sure. She asked me about the current programs by which instructors learn to teach, and was ready to start designing flash cards and writing lectures.
I had to tell her to simmer down, that I’ve had close to ten different instructors off and on over the years and that they all teach in some version of the same way, and that it’s just how lessons are taught, and it’s what we who’re taking dressage lessons are used to.
But it was an interesting outside, professional perspective, for sure.
Instructors don’t wake up one day as a freshman in college and decide that they want to be a riding teacher, and therefor pursue a masters in education. They frequently aren’t even a “people person”, which makes them very suited to train horses. unfortunately :), most young trainers discover that the horses they ride come with humans attached, and they are expected to teach them as well as the horses. Two VERY different skills…
They teach people because they are (presumably) good enough riders that other people eventually ask them for help. Often there is an inverse relationship between the trainer’s talent in the saddle and their talent as a communicator with humans.
Along the lines of the Equestrian Educatuon program that Jill Hassler did:
Somebody (Silverbridge?) should really get some one like silverbridge’s sister on board to do a HOW TO TEACH seminar for riding instructors. Team them up with an FEI judge who has worked their way up the food chain as a trainer also. I, for one , would sign up for a continuing Ed program like that. I bet lots of other trainers would as well…
Found the name of the guy doing instructor’s support:
Henrick Johanson
http://positiveriding.com
I don’t know anything about the program, other than what’s on the website ??
Something else I’ve thought about for a while in regard to teaching riding is that the varying backgrounds we have as individuals significantly influence what we experience as “breakthrough” moments and consequently what we think is the right perspective on whatever those moments are about.
So there’s inherently a bias in how you might explain or approach some concept, which could be totally ineffective or even counterproductive for your student. I have definitely worked with trainers who have said exactly opposite things, but have been trying to produce the exact same result. A rough example is that we want to “slow the front legs down and speed the hind legs up,” but someone might only say “slow the horse down” or “speed the horse up” depending on how they think about it when they ride.
The point being, if we’re developing a syllabus for arlosmine’s seminar, a lecture on “What your student’s background means and how to teach to it” would be a fine addition!
Sorry if this is all obvious. I’m not a riding instructor and have no idea to what extent this is common practice already.
Interesting!
Lidador, Jill taught us to always interview a student at the beginning of their first lesson: ask questions about what their other hobbies are, their work history, education, musical instruments played, other sport involvement. This was to help us discover what methods of communication would work best for them, what analogies to use, what life experiences they had that could be useful reference tools.
