Let’s Discuss: The Learning Equation

The other day I found myself perusing the recent backlog of articles from Chronicle of the Horse, and I came across one I think we could all benefit from reading. It’s called “Teaching and Learning: A Shared Responsibility” and written by Catherine Haddad, a dressage rider of no small note, as part of her ongoing blog series with the Chronicle. The purpose of the article was an analysis of the different ways riders learn, the different ways teachers teach, and the fact that for optimal learning to occur, the responsibilty lies within both the teacher and the student. 

I always find it interesting to watch the different relationships between students and coaches, how some coaches (usually the best ones) adapt themselves to best teach the student in front of them, while others seem to teach in the same mold year after year. Conversely, studying the way a student participates in the lesson can be equally fascinating. Some say nothing, some say everything that comes across their mind, and then there are those who seem to have found the medium- they speak often enough to ask questions and our quiet enough to absorb the full extent of information their coach is trying to impart. 

Something less obvious in watching others and really known only from our own experiences is when we actually learn what has been taught to us. Its difficult to quantify when learning occurs because, as humans, we have both the blessing and curse of being able to percieve and study our enviornment, putting truth into the saying, “we are the result of our experiences.” In other words, the way we truly learn is not by being taught, but rather by experiencing a multitude of situations, which takes, among other things, a great deal of time. A couple of months ago, I read a book (upon recommendation of Denny Emerson) called Mastery- The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment by George Leonard. In the book, he explains that the key to learning and fulfilment in the process comes in accepting the fact that learning is really a series of plateaus, each followed by a ‘peak’ of learning progress, followed ultimetly by another plateau. I’m certainly no expert on the topic, but it is something I think each of us can relate closely with.

I think that in our quest to become better riders and better horseman, we should also strive to become better students. It’s easy to pass up learning opportunities with the seemingly daily shortages of time, energy, and money we face, but we can’t forgot that learning is at foundation of everything we aim to do and aspire to being.