5 minute read
Business Matters
Great Instructors Are Great Students —Here’s Why
By Doug Emerson, The Profitable Horseman
Your financial success as a riding instructor is directly related to your teaching effectiveness. Students come back for repeat lessons and refer new students to you because they enjoy learning with you and get measurable benefits. Riding lessons are a choice, not a requirement.
As you keep students engaged, encourmentally exhausting, competition became aged and achieving progress, your busihighly rewarding. ness grows. Think back about your favorite I attribute the success of the team to school teachers and riding instructors. They the coach, Dr. Gordon Jones. He did three taught you in a way that was challenging things the best coaches do well: and at the same time they 1. He was a polished teachmade learning fun. After the class or lesson was over, you wanted more. Thinking back to my college days as an agri-business student, I did well enough in “ If a student was putting in full er and speaker . Instead of an easy answer of “because” he offered a bushel basket full of “whys” one animal was superior to another in a variety of ways for better a livestock evaluation class effort to learn, understanding. He engaged to be asked by the professtudent concentration and sor to join the intercollegiate he put in full focus with his dynamic livestock judging team. We teaching style. judged cattle, sheep and hogs, but unfortunately, horses were not included. The team travelled all over the U.S. competing with other schools in placing classes of livestock 2. He never got angry. If a team member “busted” the placing order in a class, he methodically reviewed the strengths and weaknesses of each animal and explained the reasoning ” effort to teach. and then giving oral reasons to a judge as for the correct placing of the class. He to why we placed the individual animals in understood all students have an occathe class in the order we did. sional train wreck to laugh about later.
Initially, we practiced for hours at a time If a student was putting in full effort to with classes on the school farm. Much like learn, he put in full effort to teach. learning to ride, it took full concentra3. He had a sense of humor. He would crack tion and offered a good dose of frustraa joke whenever comic relief was needtion. Eventually, the team became skilled ed to break tension. Sarcasm and negaand proficient and we scored well in our tive commentary were never offered. As competitions. Though at times judging was he sensed a student’s frustration was building or focus was dwindling, he knew how to tell a funny one-liner or relate a quick story. He understood learning did not have to be entirely drilling and drudgery. A smile got better results than a drill sergeant’s scowl.
Granted, you’re not a livestock judge and most likely don’t want to be, but the above story makes good points about the styles and natures of all the best instructors. Yes, adequate technical knowledge is the foundation of all good instructors but knowing it is not enough. Delivery of the knowledge is equally important to the student. When you recall learning from your favorite teachers, most likely they used the same approach as the three points in the story above.
In this back to school season, you may want to consider strengthening your skill set by doing the following: • Become a polished speaker as you teach.
Teaching is predominantly talking and no doubt you’ve had the ability to talk for a number of years, starting in childhood. But, speaking with a developed
“way with words” is a skill that requires study and practice. Have you ever noticed how some people excel at getting a message conveyed and understood with just the right amount of words and no more?
Toastmasters International is a global organization with local clubs everywhere for you to hone your speaking skill in a friendly and supportive environment.
I’ve seen fantastic results for improved speaking by Toastmaster club members.
The Dale Carnegie Training organization also offers courses in public speaking which have helped people for decades become skilled at holding the attention of listeners.
Night classes are available everywhere for public speaking. • Audit a clinic or an admired instructor’s lessons, for the sole purpose of picking up alternate teaching styles that could work for you. Take note and take home different phrases, speech tempos and body language you can experiment with as
you teach. Repetition is a fundamental of teaching horses and humans and being able to say the same message three ways with different wording will help you become a highly sought after instructor. • Record one of your lessons to review later.
You may be surprised as you replay it. • Collect and use anecdotal short stories about things that happened to you or others that will break tension and draw a smile. When you think about it, funny things happen all day long. • Be aware of your building anger or frustration during a lesson where things are not going well. Anger is always detrimental when training horses and humans.
Develop techniques to shake off anger when it appears. Staying fresh and sharp is a challenge for all professionals. Your teaching methods will remain stagnant in the realm of your comfort zone unless you push yourself to look for and implement new and better ways of teaching. As you improve at instructing, your students improve at learning. That will bring a smile to everyone’s face. Why not start today?
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About the author: Doug Emerson, the Profitable Horseman, consults, writes and speaks about the business half of the h orse b usiness. H e e njoys w orking w ith s mall g roups of professional horsemen and women in one day workshops to help them organize their business for profit and less stress. Find out more at www. ProfitableHorseman.com
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