Horses can get a bit of a rough ride, can they not? Of course, that might mean that they can be ridden badly by their rider, forcing them over hard terrain, through extreme weathers, for hour after hour, at top speed, being whipped harder and harder. We do not always treat horses well. Indeed, many people will highlight the famous (and massively popular) Grand National race (where millions of people who do not normally follow horse racing bet on the runners) that was held this weekend in England as a prime example of horses being pushed to the limit and forced to jump massive jumps. Well might we remember the saying that “For want of a nail, the shoe is lost, for want of a shoe the horse is lost, for want of a horse the rider is lost.” Horses have it rough.
Horses also have it rough as a lot of expressions and sayings do not hold them in the highest esteem. A well-known proverb is that which declares that “you can take a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink”. You cannot force the horse to drink; you cannot push its head down to the water and make it drink. Oh, yes, we have heard that often — a cry of desperation, frustration, limitation, insurrection, devastation, whatever. You try so hard but there is no response, no gratitude. We know better and they just do not respond.
Pause, though, and maybe consider, how frustrating that is for horses, too. We would do well to pause for a moment or two and reflect on the saying. Maybe, just maybe there is something in the water, something wrong with the water, that the horse senses which the human does not. Is there poison in it, perhaps? There may be good reasons that the horse is not drinking. After all, why must it drink when and where we believe it should or must?
This article is not intended to be a plea on behalf of horses, but the saying does evoke similar thoughts and feelings for teachers! How often have teachers felt that they have brought all this wonderful knowledge, insight, preparation and explanation to the children in their class and the children just do not do anything with it. How frustrating is that for teachers! Many readers, not just teachers, will have come across the saying but few seem to know that actually there is more to the saying — the proverb does not finish with “you cannot make it drink”. No, you see, “you can take a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink… but you can make it thirsty”! You can make it thirsty.
Sir Ken Robinson was one of the most influential educational voices of this century and he described how we have developed a “fast food education system”, where everything offered is “standardised or customised to local circumstances”, which “only impoverishes our spirits and energies”. It leads to people dropping out of education, all because, very simply, there is no passion in it. Children are not excited enough to want to learn, whatever is thrown at them by national curricula. Therefore, we have to get children to have a passion, by seeing the purpose of it and by giving them a belief in it. Education is not a matter of fashion, but of passion.
The same might be said with reference to our national heritage. Providing lessons on our heritage and culture is not enough to make children believe, desire or be passionate about them. We want children to learn about where we have come from so that they will stay but there has to be reason for them to want to stay, to believe in what is happening here. Why do people leave this country? Answer: what is there for them here? We have to make them thirsty. We have to make them want to stay. Education is not a matter of poison but passion. It is not what is popular but what is purposeful.
We often say humorously, “What’s your poison?” to ask our friends what kind of alcoholic drink they would like. Similarly, people say, “One man’s meat is another man’s poison” and the same applies to education. We must make children want to learn and make our children want to stay, rather than force them to do something about which they have no passion or belief. Sure, we should “Look not a gift horse in the mouth” but “Better ride on ass that carries me, than on a horse that throws me.”
Perhaps we need a little bit of horse sense (“Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people”), get off our high horse and learn “from the horse’s mouth”. We must face reality, stop forcing “fast food education” on our children and focus on making them thirsty, passionate.