ABSTRACT

Jennifer’s focus on selective behaviours in the herd, and her subsequent observations and interpretations of roles and relationships, become our way into Jennifer’s inner world. Equine-assisted learning sessions demonstrate how social relationships work in a herd of horses. Horses are powerful animals, and bullying tactics simply don’t work with them. The movement and direction of the horses had to result solely from the students’ cooperation, energy and resourcefulness. One of the core assumptions of Real Horse Power is that doing things collaboratively makes working together so much easier – it’s hard to be in conflict all the time. Horses will not cooperate when the groups are not cohesive, and we used principles of cooperative group work to devise our programme. Fitting in is not surprisingly a key theme that emerges when working with the groups. Cooperative groups can explore and value differences between people thereby developing empathy.