You must somehow understand that we as horsemen can do very little to teach the horse. What we can do is to create an environment in which he can learn.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of creating a conducive environment for effective learning rather than simply trying to impose knowledge.
Monty Roberts highlights that as horsemen, our role is not to directly teach horses, but to cultivate an environment that fosters their ability to learn. This reflects a broader principle applicable to education and training, where the focus should be on setting the stage for growth and understanding rather than solely directing the learner.
In practice
This quote can be used in a workshop on effective teaching methods.
I had been riding horses before my memory kicked in, so my life with horses had no beginning. It simply appeared from the fog of infancy. I survived a difficult childhood by traveling on the backs of horses, and in adulthood the pattern didn't change.
A good trainer can hear a horse speak to him. A great trainer can hear him whisper.
For centuries, humans have said to horses, 'You do what I tell you or I'll hurt you.' Humans still say that to each other -- still threaten, force and intimidate. I'm convinced that my discoveries with horses have value in the workplace, in the educational and penal systems, and in the raising of children. At heart, I'm saying that no one else has the right to say 'you must' to an animal -- or to another human.
Though Nathalie Dupree did not remember much about my presence in her class, it marked me forever. I remain her enthusiast, her evangelist, her acolyte, and her grateful student. She taught me that cooking and storytelling make the most delightful coconspirators.
I am always doing what I can't do yet in order to learn how to do it.
Experiment! Meet new people. Thatβs better than any college education . . . By adventuring; about, you become accustomed to the unexpected. The unexpected then becomes what it really is . . . the inevitable.
I look at [books] as a child looks at cakes - with glittering eyes and a watering mouth, imagining the pleasure that awaits him.
There are two subjects, indeed, which I shall claim a right to further as long as I breathe: the public education, and the sub-division of counties into wards. I consider the continuance of republican government as absolutely hanging on these two hooks.
The school-to-prison pipeline - the disproportionality that exists in handing out school discipline in schools to Black and Brown students for simple infractions - pushes kids out of classrooms and into our ever-growing system of mass incarceration.
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