The Reluctant Student

I've never been engaged in education as a profession.  My mom is a retired kindergarten teacher and my sister currently teaches at the high school level.  Teaching (if you are doing it right) is hard work!  It involves dedication, drive and determination.  Most importantly, a good teacher will cunningly explore means of motivating his or her student to learn when he or she does not want to.

I was thinking about this in my daily effort to halter break our little heifer, Betsy.  Betsy is LuLu's little girl.  When I say halter break, what I'm talking about is to teach her to walk when being led with a rope.  It is best to train them before they get too big.  When they get too big, it's almost impossible because they can pull YOU instead of you pulling them.

Each day for the past couple of weeks, I've cornered Betsy and put the breaking rope around her head.  She is adamantly opposed to this restriction of her freedom.  In response, she'll stubbornly pull back when I pull forward.  As you might imagine this is an uncomfortable thing as the rope pulls snugly against the back of her head and around her muzzle.

For about the first 50 yards, she puts up quite a fight, with me essentially dragging her against her will.  What I've learned, and my wife will vouch for this, is that I'm more stubborn than Betsy.  I continue pulling longer than she can continue resisting.  She eventually figures out that it is exceedingly more comfortable to walk alongside me than to pull against me.  When that happens, I loosen the rope, gently stroke her neck and behind her ears and I'll talk in a nice tone to her.  I'm never mean to her.  I never strike her.  

The negative motivation is the uncomfortable feel of the halter tightening when she fights back and the positive motivation is the loosening of the halter, the stroking and the kind words.  This positive and negative reinforcement are strong tools in teaching this little reluctant student.  Before you know it we are in the opposite diagonal corner than where we started from by the barn as we walk the perimeter of the 3 acre pasture.

Sometimes she wants to walk or run so fast that she gets out ahead of me.  That's an easier thing than pulling her, but she needs to be taught to follow me at MY pace - not hers.  It's about control.  She's getting it.

Day by day, little Betsy is getting better.  It takes less effort to catch her.  It takes a shorter time of pulling before she decides she wants to walk with me.  It also takes less and less time each day to walk around the 3 acre pasture.  The reluctant student is slowly learning.  It's a rewarding experience to see the progress we've made in a short time.  We'll keep at it.