A general rant about the poor standard of riding teachers
Riding is an increasingly popular past time in this country. I should also point out its not only restricted to toffs and spoilt little girls (although both types do exist). What worries me though is the standard of teaching these riders, and me, get. The majority of the better and popular schools all seem to teach according to the British Horse Society (BHS) way. The rest just seem to make it up as the go along.
I have just come back from a frustrating lesson where the 'teacher' (and I use the term loosely) spent most of the lesson chatting to her friend. There is often no attempt to explain what is required its just barked at you. Riding instructors seem to be of the same school as those who believe that when on holiday and forced to talk to foreigners who never bothered to learn English that speaking louder and slower will make them understand.
I have in the past taught. I know that the basic thing to do is ascertain the level of the pupil and what they want/need to achieve. Explain to them what your going to teach them. Explain and if possible demonstrate something and then get the pupil to try. If the pupil doesn't get it show them where you think they went wrong and ask them to do it again. Feed back to the student as to how well, or not if thats the case, they are doing in moving towards their goals. Discuss the goals with the student, make suggestions.
Using phrases that you know the meaning of doesn't mean that the student will pick it up via telepathy. Nor does shouting them over and over again. Don't expect that if some one sits on a horse and does rising trot around and around until either they or the poor horse drops dead they going to become a rider. I know people who have ridden for years. Some of them are shit riders, its just that they are now experienced shit riders.
I know i'm doing things wrong that are not being picked up on. I know there are basic things i could improve on. I know that i'm paying some one to apparently not tell me. This time i had some one video me and we are both going through the video at home in order to teach my self.
The problem is the dominance of the BHS style and the kind of person who does the teaching. There are, i'm sure, many good riding instructors out there. Its just the number of young girls who love horse but have no ability or interest in teaching. I am positive that there must be hundreds of people out there who have started learning to ride who have been put off by this amature approach. I'm also sure that there are many riders out there who could get so much more out of riding than they currently do.
I have just come back from a frustrating lesson where the 'teacher' (and I use the term loosely) spent most of the lesson chatting to her friend. There is often no attempt to explain what is required its just barked at you. Riding instructors seem to be of the same school as those who believe that when on holiday and forced to talk to foreigners who never bothered to learn English that speaking louder and slower will make them understand.
I have in the past taught. I know that the basic thing to do is ascertain the level of the pupil and what they want/need to achieve. Explain to them what your going to teach them. Explain and if possible demonstrate something and then get the pupil to try. If the pupil doesn't get it show them where you think they went wrong and ask them to do it again. Feed back to the student as to how well, or not if thats the case, they are doing in moving towards their goals. Discuss the goals with the student, make suggestions.
Using phrases that you know the meaning of doesn't mean that the student will pick it up via telepathy. Nor does shouting them over and over again. Don't expect that if some one sits on a horse and does rising trot around and around until either they or the poor horse drops dead they going to become a rider. I know people who have ridden for years. Some of them are shit riders, its just that they are now experienced shit riders.
I know i'm doing things wrong that are not being picked up on. I know there are basic things i could improve on. I know that i'm paying some one to apparently not tell me. This time i had some one video me and we are both going through the video at home in order to teach my self.
The problem is the dominance of the BHS style and the kind of person who does the teaching. There are, i'm sure, many good riding instructors out there. Its just the number of young girls who love horse but have no ability or interest in teaching. I am positive that there must be hundreds of people out there who have started learning to ride who have been put off by this amature approach. I'm also sure that there are many riders out there who could get so much more out of riding than they currently do.
posted by gerbil at 6:33 pm
2 Comments:
gerbil,
Good luck.
There are some bad teachers who are bad because they are bad learners. They failed to learn what must be taught. They might know, but recognizing what needs to be taught could be two different things.
I wonder if you point blank tell the teacher she/he is not conveying the right information about horseback riding to you?
Your right. For them I'm a strange one. I seriously think most of their pupils are young horsey girls and in this country horse riding is a femanine past time. So i'm an adult and a male.
I think i'm an ok rider but i'm now aiming to get to the level where i can identify key factors and then focus their attention on to those.
Strange thing is speaking to others it seems to be generally recognised that teaching is far from perfect. I just think it is have a bad effect and too many people just accept it - we are EEnglish after all;)
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