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I found the portion of the piece pertaining to open-ended transactional inquiry was relevant to my own theories about horse training. There are two basic classes of riders: amateurs and professionals. Professional riders are people who accept money for training and showing other's horses. Amateurs are riders who have less experience, skill, and sometimes talent; they do not accept money for their riding. In the equestrian discipline of hunters, professionals spend a significant portion of time training young horses. They make use of their skill and judgement to provide the horse with consistent guidance and instruction in how to perform. The young or inexperienced hunter prospect, horse, develops proficiency with specific tasks. This training by appropriate professionals results in horses with predictable skills present at predetermined ages. However, when an amateur trains a horse, the process is fundamentally different. An amateur is not capable of providing a highly structured learning environment for the horse; they do not possess a well developed judgement or set of skills. Amateurs are inconsistent and commit a variety of mistakes. Despite this multiplicity of
hindrances, amateurs are sometimes successful in training their own horses.
The amateur must apply an assortment of training strategies that differ significantly from the professional. The horse-rider relationship between an amateur and their horse is significantly different than the one between a professional and their mount. The amateur must acknowledge their capacity for making mistakes by adopting a non-authoritative posture. The amateur is forming a partnership with their horse, where the judgements or opinions of both partners will be considered. Similar to the recommended for a teacher encouraging transactional inquiry. As the students take an active role in their education, so does the horse, by exploring their own interpretation of the tasks set and problems to be solved. Whether or not a horse that is trained by an amateur has the exact same set of skills as a professional horse is difficult to evaluate. However, it would be interesting to investigate how the analytical and critical thinking skills of horses trained by amateurs compare. This information might bare some relevance to the topic of experiential learning.
As a non-neurobiologist, I am uncertain about the similarities and differences between horse and human brains. I wonder whether equine neurobiology implies anything different about horse training or education?