Expose Your Students

by Barbara Ellin Fox

It’s easy to get caught up in wanting to build your reputation, pay your bills and being concerned about how the success of your students in the show ring helps your name. But don’t get stuck the rut of believing being a riding instructor is about you. It’s not. It’s about the students and their lives.  It’s about them.

Do you spend much time thinking about the impact you have on your students’ lives? Students ride with instructors that they admire and respect and consequently the instructors have an amazing influence over developing characters.

Instructors have a habit of developing “ownership” over their students.  They want to make the decisions for their students.  They take the attitufde that the student shouldn’t ride with anyone else, shouldn’t do anything different with their horse, and should follow the prescribed path the instructor lays out.

It’s true that students have instructors because they want help making decisions but you have to be careful not to take away their independence.  Instead of “clipping their wings” and making them “earthbound”, why not teach them to fly?

A good instructor wants his students to excel, even if one day they move on. The reality of teaching is that the student you have today will probably not be yours in 5 years. Why not take the chance that they go on because you have opened doors for them, as opposed to just moving on?

Expose your students to the “possibilities”.   We spend much time teaching our students to stretch their muscles and supple their horses, why not stretch their minds, broaden their horizons and and expose them to what might be instead of what is?

You can expand your students’ horizons by inviting clinicians to your farm or encouraging  them to go out to clinics.  I don’t just mean cliinicians that are in their riding venue. Encourage students to try new things. Encourage them to view things differently.  If your student rides hunters why not expose them to an endurance clinic?  Endurance people REALLY know how to condition horses. (Learn more about endurance   www.aerc.org ) If she’s an equitation rider why not go to a reining clinic? Does any rider learn to diesengage and let the horse work, than a reining rider? Encourage them to audit or participate. Encourage them to join other associations and clubs. Encourage them to see that the horse world is way bigger than what they see in lessons.

In the October 2 Between Rounds in Chronicle of the Horse, Susie  Schoellkopf writes about the recent USHJA “Emerging Athletes Program” where Melanie Smith Taught taught EAP candidataes. Melanie is a World Cup Champion, an Olympic Gold Medalist, and chef d’equip of U.S. Show Jumping teams.  By having someone of her caliber teach, the students that rode with Melanie in these clinics were exposed to possabilities.  Not only were they challenged to ride better but they were exposed to the philoosophy of someone who’d reached a rae height opening their minds, showing them a bigger picture. (Learn more about USHJA Emerging Athletes Program http://www.ushja.org/EAP/Default.aspx )

Some of the students left the clinics with a positive attitude.  Their the ones who had doors opened and horizons widened.  Other students left with self deprecating attitudes,  defeating themselves.  Perhaps they had some of their own closed doors revealed.

Even Melanie Smith Taylor goes beyond her own focus.  Schoellkopf notes that Melanie has a “long- lasting relationship with Buck Brannaman…”  You may remember Buck Brannaman as one of the trainers involved with producing the movie “The Horse Whisperer”. (Learn more about Buck Brannaman http://www.brannaman.com/)

Susie Schoellkpf encourages riders to become readers and to study the history of our sport.  Riders can start by visiting my other blog U.S. Horsemanship at http://ushorsemanship.com/ .  US Horsemanship is devoted to preserving the history of our riding sports.

Susiew Schoellkpf also encourabges riders to get involved in Pony Club, foxhunting and spending more time with their horses.  I’d add that instruct6ors should encourage their riders to trail ride and even prepare for a schooling level activity in a different venue.

The Emerging Athletes Program focuses on the potentital cream of the crop.  Most riding instructors are not teaching the cream of the crop, but they are teaching horse lovers .  If we give them wings, broaden their horizons and show them possabilities….who knows? They may be horsemen and women for a lifetime.

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