By George Williams
Reflecting about things this holiday season, I’m not sure why this riddle popped into my head: Who learns more, the student or the teacher? The answer is not always as obvious as one might think. I can say that as a teacher, you’re always learning, often becoming a student to the student without them ever knowing it.
I always thought my father was extremely hard on teachers when he would say, to quote him loosely, “If a student doesn’t learn, then it is the fault of the teacher.” He would also point out that it takes a better teacher to teach Einstein’s theory of relativity to kids in grade school than to students at grad school. After over 50 years of teaching—if I include my Pony Club years—I realize that my father’s sage remarks were quite astute.
Years ago, when Conrad Schumacher was teaching the USET Youth clinics for our up-and-coming riders, he told me and my wife that he thinks about it constantly when a lesson doesn’t go well. There have been many sleepless nights, my mind tossing and turning, spent working through where a lesson went wrong and how to do better next time. Without a doubt, I’ve been fortunate in the teachers I’ve had. There are many times while teaching that I think of them—or rather, I like to believe, they come to me. To be honest, on many occasions I feel they bail me out in challenging situations. It can come in the form of an exercise I have learned from them, a word or expression they used or simply an image of them teaching. One of the things I love about passing exercises that I’ve learned from others on to my students is the instant remembrance of the person who taught it to me. It’s just one way that I never forget my teachers and they stay with me forever. For me, that is one of the gifts of teaching.
At a clinic not that long ago, I was starting to teach an older gentleman whose wife had ridden for years but he had started to ride later in life. He asked me a simple question: When his wife and his instructor told him he needed to ‘use his seat,’ what was he actually supposed to do? I have to say it was one of the most fun and rewarding lessons I have ever taught. How to explain something that those of us who basically started riding as infants did innately? There are many reasons I enjoy teaching riders of all levels—it can indeed be challenging, and we must know our subject matter inside out, top to bottom, in order to be able to explain things in a way that can be understood no matter the level of the rider or the horse. For me, that’s another gift of what we do: From teaching, we gain a greater understanding of our subject matter.
Going back to my father’s point, it is apparent that a good teacher must understand how their student learns. By traditional standards—or at least the standards of the 1960s and early ’70s—I was not a good student. In the classroom, I loved looking out windows and dreaming while the poor teacher mumbled on and on, to my distracted mind, about something or other. This was especially true in my Latin class, ultimately leading to my changing to a school where the teacher-student ratio was far smaller, creating an environment where the teacher was more engaged, and therefore so was I. I was fortunate and lucky because at the new school, I had teachers who understood that some students do indeed learn differently. This piqued my interest in learning and helped set the course my life would take.
When it comes to riding, the different ways people learn is especially important. Some learn by feel, some visually, some verbally and some by trial and error. Some are good listeners, some are not. Some need strong encouragement while others need quiet patience. No matter how one learns, it is our responsibility as teachers to learn from our students.
I expressed similar sentiments recently in a text to one of my former students: “It’s always wonderful to hear about the impact you might have had on someone with their riding and their horses. However, I have to say what people don’t always realize is that as a teacher, we are also frequently touched by the students we teach. They become part of who we are today as teachers. You were a joy to teach and part of the fond memories I have of that time in my career. So, thank you again for your words and know that the feeling is mutual.”
For me that is perhaps the greatest gift of all one receives from teaching.
