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  • Man Who Listens to Horses

Man Who Listens to Horses

karin February 6, 2004
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Read Time:1 Minute, 39 Second

Essentially, this is an autobiography with an ulterior motive. Mr. Roberts,

a horse trainer, wants to change the way horses are broken in and trained. So in this

autobiography, he describes how he first discovered and then shaped his ideas about

“starting” horses. He wants to convert horse experts to respect and follow his

technique. He uses the term “starting,” as opposed to the traditional phrase, “breaking”

horses in, as a means of differentiating his approach from what he feels, and

demonstrates, is the more cruel approach.

How did he first decode the

horse’s body language? What events in his life enabled him to figure out what no one else

had noticed? These are the questions the book explains.

You don’t have to

own a horse to enjoy this book, but it would probably help. A BBC documentary special

aired on PBS stations about the time of the book’s initial release, so Roberts’ story

should be fairly well known to anyone already interested in horses.

The only weakness here was Mr. Roberts’s tendency to make personal proclamations.

He is forever pointing out the greatest, worst, most painful or most happy moments of his

life. Imagine, for example, this country cowboy, gee whiz, sitting down to tea with the

Queen of England. These are the moments when you wish his editor had shown some

backbone.

Roberts applied the same lessons he learned in rearing horses

to teaching children. Just as starting horses requires a trainer able to listen to and

encourage the horse, so teaching children requires a teacher willing to listen to and

encourage the child. He quotes his favorite teacher who told him, “There is no teaching,

only learning.” Unless a teacher can encourage a student to learn, it doesn’t matter

what the lesson plans look like or how many computers the school has up and running.

Without motivation, there is no learning.

His discoveries make for

absorbing reading. This is a singular story, and I enjoyed reading it.

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