George's Entourage

George and Rose's friendship took six months from first meeting to the point where they could be together in the same space without Rose feeling fearful or George feeling the need to bite her. Then they went through a short phase when George broke the ice by acting all studdish and mounting her. And gradually from there they developed the beautiful relationship they have now, where George has nominated Rose as his mom, but he's still in charge. Rose's sweetness has been a balm to him, I think, and her presence has given him a safe place to relax and unwind. He has grown generous toward her and will stand by while she takes treats.

Rose is a nice napping partner.

George and Bridget's relationship, on the other hand, remained stormy and tense for much longer. For four years they couldn't occupy the same space. There was a certain curiosity between them, however, which they would sometimes try to satisfy by talking to each other over a fence, or even over a person. At home in PA, there are two adjoining fields with an open gate between, and I've observed them use that set-up to go one on each side of a fence in order to squeal at each other. 

Finally, this year there has been a rapprochement. They can stand fairly close together, and occasionally they'll touch noses or one will nose the other's flank without ensuing drama. I feel that their long journey to Texas together has helped their relationship.

As for Chloe - she has absolutely avoided George; no way was she ever going to allow herself to get anywhere near that dreadful ogre. And his behavior pretty much justified her fears, as if Chloe got in his vicinity, he'd usually offer to bite her. Even with a barrier between, the George-bites/Chloe-flees scenario remained.

Until.

Yesterday, I prevailed on Chloe to exit the field with me. She was very engaged in the process of getting through the gate and did not change her mind or want to quit when we had to run the George gauntlet. My strategy was basically to keep nicely reminding George that he was supposed to let us get out and to keep plying him with treats (not as rewards, but as morale boosters). He was in a high state of tension and clearly fighting with himself, but Chloe (a more acute George observer than I) did not falter. We dodged and sidestepped, and I kept swiveling to keep George in my sights, and we made it through the gate with no bites and no unauthorized escapees. 

Chloe then spent some time grazing, and (on account of she's a little angel) she let me clamber onto her back and sit there. When it was time to take her back, George stuck his head over the gate to greet us, and - lo and behold - he and Chloe touched noses FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME. Only for a micro-second to be sure, but they did it again, just to be sure I didn't think I'd imagined it. And then George nicely let us back into the field.

This photo makes it look like Chloe is huge and I am tiny,
whereas in fact, as everyone knows, the opposite is true.

A New Friend for George

My husband is not a horsey person. He'd sort of like to be, and he fancies the idea of going for a nice ride, but our horses are not exactly dead-broke, and he doesn't enjoy all the ancillary activities preceding and following a ride - catching, grooming, tacking up, etc. etc. Not to mention all the activities preceding the preceding activities - the stuff I'm interested in - e.g. hanging out in the field, taking the horses for walks, finding out what they want to do, that kind of thing.

However, now that we live in the city, he appreciates a jaunt to the country and an opportunity to let the dogs run free, so off we went yesterday together to the barn. He hadn't been counting on having to do this, but he girded up his loins and agreed to take George out for a walk, while I took Bridget.

It's fun to see how keen the horses (well, some of them) are on going out. Bridget was really eager, especially as it's usually George who gets to venture forth. However, I have to say my poor husband could not be said to enjoy the expedition very much. He felt like he couldn't keep up with George and was constantly being pushed into thorn bushes.

Then when we turned the horses loose again (at the first possibly opportunity at the nearest gate), he wasn't really interested in staying in the field and made a beeline for the far gate. I'm not sure if this is because fundamentally he feels nervous around them, or if he's bored, or what.  I told him to not let them do anything he didn't feel comfortable with and not to let himself get wedged in between them, which unfortunately I think added to the feeling of danger.

Be that as it may, the horses thought it was awesome to have a new person in their field with them. They wanted to follow him and get close to him. He did hand out some treats, but that really wasn't their main interest. George even came up and put him in the friendly spot on his left side. George likes people who aren't very familiar with horses and enjoyed being with him on the walk.

Much more tension in the human than in the horse.

The human is now paying attention to the horse, and look how sweetly
George is taking in the presence of his walking companion.


Here are the horses with their reluctant new friend.

I've yet to get to the bottom of why this human is not very keen on spending time with horses. Even if you remove the threatening scenario of having all the horses clustering round, he's still not interested in spending time with just one horse. He loves dogs. But here's what I'm doing this weekend, which I'm SUPER-EXCITED about: I'm going to a day-long workshop, run by a yoga instructor, which is designed for people who are attracted to horses but fearful of them (part of a program called Authenticity Training Through the Yoga of Equine Wisdom). Maybe I can gain me some insights into how to help my husband enjoy the horses. And the new barn owner has already agreed to give him riding lessons, which unaccountably he's more interested in than ground work/play. Because, gee, you can't fall off the ground, but whatever.

George Likes to Walk

I think George really likes the new barn. Certainly he enjoys exploring in a way that he didn't in his old home. Of course often when he comes out of the pasture, he wants to spend time eating the grass-that's-greener, but he always wants to have a tour of inspection too. And if it looks like I'm going to make him stop eating and go back to the pasture, he'll say, "No no! It's time to go out on Patrol!" And off he'll march, with me huffing and puffing to keep up.

There's a field of mares - very interesting - but he doesn't want to get too close.

We pass the gelding pasture. They must be shown that George is way more studly and important than they are. He snorts and struts and paws the ground. From a safe distance.

Sometimes he has to check out something unusual in the distance. The other day it was a big white crane.

I need to get my new helmet and figure out which saddle works for both me and George so that we can go out riding. He likes to walk considerably faster than me, and I hope he'll enjoy the opportunity to go out exploring at his own pace instead of my poky one.

George's Practice

Our new barn in Texas boasts a 60' Round Pen.

Now, a round pen is a useful accessory, and I'm glad to have it, but not nearly as glad as I once would have been. On account of, thanks to Ms. Spilker, my horses no longer really have to do anything they don't want. So, pretty much, those round-and-round-we-go-this-way-then-that-at-this-speed-then-that-stop-only-when-I-tell-you days are over.

What we do we instead, you might ask?

Well, here's something George has been working on, and the round pen was part of his equipment.

Our formerly aggressive horse, George, hates for you to stand by his shoulder and ask him to move it away from you. At one time, such a heinous suggestion might have elicited the threat of a bite. At the very least eyes would narrow, ears would pin back, head would snake - drama drama drama.

I've backed off more and more to the point where I'd be standing about two or more feet away, gently just point a little finger at his shoulder, and whisper, "Georgie pie, would you like to move over maybe just maybe?" Even this would cause the smoke to start coming out of his ears.

He'll move over if you ask him other ways, but that shoulder spot is super sensitive, and it just irks him no end.

Well, the other day we were in the round pen. Sometimes when we go in there, George'll go, "Oh yeah, I know what we do - I'll trot round this way, and then I'll trot round the other way once or twice, and --- that's enough now! What else shall we do?" And of course I don't make him go around any more.

So we might do a little shifting his quarters over, and maybe backing up a bit (all at liberty). We might visit other ways to ask him to move his shoulder, or we might just stand still together. The nice thing about a round pen is that the horse and human are contained within a limited safe space, both free to come together or separate as each desires.

The other day, in the round pen, after a few preliminaries, George came up on my right side and stopped with me in the BAD SPOT next to his shoulder. (Normally he likes to put me by his waist.) Then he reached around away from me and bit himself. After a moment, one of us moved away. But immediately he returned to the same position and did the same thing - tensed up and reached round to bite himself.

This continued several more times. I really didn't say anything - I just stood there and let George use me to probe his fears. He kept returning to the dreaded spot, biting himself each time.

Finally, after several tries, when George came up beside me, he sighed, settled, and dropped his head. Here he is. All his own work.

Later that day we were all out in the field together. When I headed back to the gate, the horses all came with me, and George walked beside me, shoulder to shoulder. He's a fast walker, and after a while I couldn't keep up with him and fell behind. I thought he'd keep going, but he stopped and turned back to look at me. When I caught up, he nudged me with his head, and we set off again together.

George's work is a witness to how seriously a horse can approach his life, his relationships, his fears. George seems aware of the conflict that sometimes exists between his own inner demons and an ideal peaceful world. He faces that disconnect and seeks ways of reconciliation.

I've been enjoying the educational author Alfie Kohn, who has written many interesting books, including one called Punished by Rewards. I believe it's obvious that using negative reinforcement to "train" George to give up his hostile ways would pre-empt and stymie his own dedication to self-improvement. But observing George practicing in the round pen really brought home to me (again) that to offer positive reinforcement is not necessarily benign; it can trivialize and distract from a person's accomplishments and efforts. If I were practicing a difficult piano piece and finally mastered it, how inappropriate and beside-the-point it would be for my teacher to say, "Good job! Now you can have a cookie!" Punishments and rewards are for work that others are making you do.

When my friend who gave us George first encountered him, he was an angry young horse called Buddy. I feel that back in his early, early days, before whatever happened that turned him fearful and mad, there must have been something about him which made the person who named him think of him as a "buddy."  I changed his name, because I call every male animal and every little boy "buddy," but I hope he is re-discovering his original self, which does indeed seem to be a true friend.

George and his sweet friend Rose

Moving

So, yeah, we kind of moved to Texas. There's a certain satisfaction in telling people you're moving to Texas. It sounds kind of crazy and excessive. Actually, apparently half the world have moved with us to Houston, as wherever you go you hear different languages and accents spoken, and very few of the people you meet are native Texans.

The horses have moved too. As we are living in Houston to be near my husband's job, they are ensconced in a "ranch" about an hour away. They're always called "ranches" here, even if just a few acres - cool, huh? My 10-year old cowboy-loving self would have approved.

The first step in moving the horses was getting the health certificates and all the shots needed to come to the barn here. This, of course, entailed a vet visit, which was one of the pre-move hurdles I was kind of dreading. George used to try and bite the vet, and Bridget used to get a little crazy.

Our area in Pennsylvania, which until recently had to rely on cow vets, now boasts a proper equine vet, and I thought we should give her a try rather bring in the guy from over the mountain. She is a petite, soft-spoken young woman, kind but no-nonsense. The horses behaved like little angels for her. Well, pretty much. George started to plunge a little when she went to give him his shots, but he never once offered to bite or nip, and he settled down quickly.

I think he was proud of himself for overcoming his vet fears. Later on when I went out to visit him, he did two things which are rare for him - he put me on his right side, and then he came and stood facing me with his head drooping to the ground, ears lopping out to the side.

Next hurdle: loading onto the truck. When the truck drove up, George and the other horses were tense and vigilant, yet somehow keen. I'd been telling them for weeks that we were all going to Texas. Maybe they were prepared.

George recognizes that this has something to do with him.

The driver was a lovely lady called Marlina Dudash, owner-operator of A1 Horse Taxi, West Virginia. She rolled up in a 4-horse slant Sundowner, loaded up our hay, filled the water tank from our well so the horses would have familiar water to drink on the journey, and then we coaxed the horses on board.

George went first, followed by Rose, then Bridget, and finally Chloe. Each one sniffed the trailer before cautiously proceeding, and Rose stood shaking for a little while, poor dear, but we had no real problems.

Marlina was wonderful and kept me posted with texts and phone calls and photos along the way. She had offered to pick them up Monday, spend a short night on the trailer with them en route and get them there Tuesday night. However, I elected to have them stop twice on the journey, at horse motels, once in Tennessee and once in Arkansas, and arrive on Wednesday. Marlina booked them into some quite tony establishments for their overnight stops.

Rose in Arkansas - a little bewildered.

They arrived on schedule in Texas, and here they are getting acquainted with their new home.

Marlina was quite taken with George and friends. She said they all behaved very well on the journey.

My Other Job

For the past nine months I've been discovering what it means to respect the "No" of children. It's all Imke Spilker's fault.

An opportunity came up last summer to teach Latin two mornings a week at a tiny "Classical Education" school to kids ages 4 to 14. Thinking it would be fun to keep my Latin up, and not wanting to be a wimp, I rashly stepped forward. I am not a teacher. I home(un)schooled my children for most of their growing years, I've tutored a little, and I taught part-time for a few weeks at another little school before dwindling enrollment forced it to close. None of this remotely qualifies me as a teacher.

It probably seems like a really dumb idea for an advocate of unschooling to get involved in classical education. However, classical education has its merits, and I was quite impressed by some experienced CE teachers who came to our school before the year began to clue us in on how it all works. I won't go it into here, but somehow I developed a nice little fantasy of happy children chanting their chants and learning their lovely learning, eager to grasp whatever knowledge might be put in front of them.

So, here we are, nearing the end of the school year, and what am I doing? I'm unschooling these children. I tried. I had fun ideas, I wrote songs, I played the guitar, I made up chants, I developed hands-on materials. They liked some of this stuff, but as time went by, I realized: this is not what they want.

Just after the school year started, we had a faculty gathering where the principal asked each of us to say something about ourselves which would give an insight into who each person really is. It was a helpful and bonding exercise. Of course I said that the most important, recent thing about me was my discovery of the importance of respecting the horse's "No." Well, I fleshed it out a bit more than that, and I also added some details about a long saga which recently witnessed first-hand, involving some children I know being court-ordered into the custody of an abusive father against their wishes. So, yeah, my thing was... children and horses ought to be given a lot of say in what happens to them.

The school has been very tolerant of me and even asked me to stay on next year. This is likely because, despite my divergent ideas, I managed to get the 7th and 8th graders prepared for the National Latin Exam, and one of them was even awarded a merit certificate (with much less preparation time per week than most schools which take the exam). The other faculty are also just really nice people. However, I'm likely to be moving soon, so I'm opting out of next year. This is just as well, as where I'm headed is probably pretty much over the cliff as far as the school is concerned.

I should stress again that the other faculty are really good people. The kids are happy, and there's a positive atmosphere at the school.  The parents, the board, and the administration have the right to have the kind of school they want - it's not up to me to try to make the place over in my image. However, I can't be with the kids in any way other than that which seems right to me, and if I can't fit in, it's probably best that I leave. Also, given that the other classes are more conventional, this one class that they attend twice a week can't bear the weight of giving them everything they need in the way of self-determination while at the same time satisfying the school's desire to provide Latin instruction.

There are many twists and turns in the story of this past year. But one way into the heart of what has been going on involves the "problem" children. Now, this is a little school where all the children come from functional, devoted families; there are NO real problem children. There are, however, those who make it hard for one's nice little fantasy of education to play out. For example, an extremely bright, precocious boy, easily bored, can't sit still. Or a boy who struggles with reading, easily bored, tunes out what you say, thinks he's "stupid." Such kids can single-handedly undermine any plan you might have for the class. I don't know what the other teachers do with them - I guess they impose "consequences." Or maybe they just know what they're doing. I gave up using consequences and have zero classroom experience, so I'm powerless.

Or at least I was, until... until... I gave up. I'm not sure how it started. Possibly with allowing the 1st/2nd grade class to make paper airplanes. I realized that the old saw, "Give them an inch and they'll take a mile" was false. The truth is more like, "Give them a mile, and they'll only take a couple of yards." I realized that you can relinquish tight control without losing appropriate control. They all listened to me if I only asked reasonable things, e.g. time to tidy up, stop climbing on the furniture. Kind of like kids in real life, as opposed to in school, where normality does not apply.

Precocious Boy and Nonreader Boy are now cooperatively engaged in building a highly elaborate Clash of Clans village. We name items in Latin for the sake of appearances. They are focussed, calm, cheerful, and polite. But before this happened, and after I stopped trying to obtain compliance, we had to go through a period when Precocious Boy spent the class napping in the cupboard under the sink (he's very small) and when Nonreader Boy wandered aimlessly around the room, not quite sure what to do next. The Kindergartners are on a mission to be left alone to decide what they want to do. The preschoolers love anything you give them to make/do, as long as you let them do it their way. I do have some kids doing Latin projects - two girls translating Frozen into Latin (with a lot of help from Magistra), three boys making a board game with Latin prompts. A 7th Grader with an IEP who actually asks to translate Latin! (And does a good job.) For the rest, we throw in Latin wherever it'll fit. I teach the little ones to say, "Viridum cupio, amabo te" when they want the green marker.

The kids have settled into a routine whereby they come into my classroom, help themselves to what they want to work with (duct tape, cardboard, scissors, glue, computer, plastic lids, paper), and get busy. If they become noisy, I can make an appeal involving the plea that I find it personally disturbing, and they quiet down. It is not all sunshine and roses - sometimes they mix glue with sand in huge quantities. Had to put a stop to that. We often take votes on things: should we stop throwing paper planes as this is the second time one has hit someone in the head? (The answer was yes.)

I've discovered Alfie Kohn and his book Punished by Rewards, which details research showing that awards, grades, praise, gold stars, etc. all undermine students' commitment to and interest in the very behavior which the rewards seek to promote. Extrinsic motivation doesn't work. This is a well-researched concept which you can discuss with educators without sounding crazy and which ultimately may lead to serious education reform. Here's hoping. In the meantime, I told the kids that we were doing away with extrinsic motivation. They were confused for a minute until I compared it to your father giving your mother a token every time she gave you a hug. "Good job hugging your son! I like to see that! When you have enough tokens, I'll take you out to dinner!" They thought that would be really weird. And I said well that's how weird it is to bribe you to do Latin.

Several educators I admire have remarked on the same phenomenon which I observed - you can come up with the cutest, funnest, most innovative, creative, scintillating lesson plan in the word, but if the kids have no choice in whether or not to participate, ultimately it's just drudgery. At Summerhill, the lessons are informal, but pretty conventional. Because the kids are free to attend or not, the lessons do not have to be, in the words of the principal, "served up with jam." The kids who choose to attend are happy to become involved in the lesson which is offered.

I've discovered that there are a growing number of "democratic" or "free" schools around the world, many in the United States, modeled after A.S. Neill's above-mentioned Summerhill School in England, which was founded almost 90 years ago and is still going strong. I told one of my classes that it's fine for them to want to play paper airplane wars all day and that some schools would happily allow them to spend their days thus engaged. And that kids from those schools still end up becoming doctors and engineers and teachers and so on. They didn't believe me at first, but I assured them I Knew All About It. I wanted them to know that even if we sometimes ask them to follow our agenda rather than theirs, it's not because our agenda is the only one which leads to success in life.  I could probably find one of these democratic schools and teach there. But I'm not a teacher. I like these kids. If I wasn't moving, I'd want to stay with them.

Intrinsic motivation - how do you find it? I think the hard-to-swallow truth is that if you really commit to intrinsic motivation, you have to commit to a willingness to allow the child to refuse to participate. I think as teachers we can turn ourselves inside out, trying to develop wonderful lesson plans which will fit all sizes and lure each child into interest. Or else we blame the child, or the child's "problem," or ourselves, for their failure to get with the program. It says on the Summerhill website: "As a teacher you are there to do your best and create an attractive atmosphere but definitely not there to 'lure children' into your classroom." It all comes back to Imke Spilker, who says you go out to the pasture, you put a halter on your horse and invite him to come with you. If he doesn't want to, you take the halter off, give him a treat and go find something else to do, like play with your dog. Summerhill gives similar advice: "Since students do not have to attend lessons it follows that they sometimes won't. You should not take this personally....If you find yourself alone then do some creative work, some admin work, pursue a personal interest, or take a break and have a cup of tea or coffee!"

This has been a strange and challenging and humbling year for me. I don't know if teaching will cross my path again in the future, but I'm grateful for this year's experience.

For Teacher Appreciation Week, someone at school arranged for the kids to make bouquets of paper flowers, colored in crayon, and arranged in a paper vase for each teacher. On one of my tulips, one anonymous kid had written, "Thank you for the freedom." I hope Chloe would approve.


P.S. Here's a photo of George looking rather happy to have my daughter spend some time with him.

Photos

Here are some photos of the horses taken by my daughter. She says that if the horses were a band, one of these pictures would be their album cover. (Don't know where Chloe's hiding.)