Perhaps you love to study and write.  There are a lot of courses available around the world that offer horse related qualifications.  For each of these courses to be offered, resources first had to be established for them.

I was talking with a colleague a couple of weeks ago about writing resources.  One of our qualifications has undergone a training package change, resulting in new resources needing to be written for some units.  For accredited courses in Australia, there are guidelines on the number of units that need to be included to make up a qualification, as well as what sort of units can be included.

Once units are included in a qualification, it is up to the training provider to provide students with resources for each unit of their course.  These units have guidelines on what information must be included and how students are to be assessed.  From these guidelines, learner resources are often written to ensure that they meet the training package requirements.

For someone who is knowledgeable in the horse industry, there may be a role in creating such resources.

Although many institutes may utilise employed teachers to create their resources, sometimes – due to time restraints or a lack of knowledge in a particular field – it can be of benefit for an educational institution to purchase learning resources and corresponding assessments.

There is surely a market out there for an educated individual to create such resources and offer them for sale to appropriate educational institutions.  Food for thought.

“To learn all that a horse could teach, was a world of knowledge, but only a beginning…” – Mary O’Hara

This may seem a little odd to read, seeing as the being of this blog is focused on equine education.

It seemed to me today whilst chatting with someone, that their sole focus was gaining a qualification in a particular field, and if they didn’t manage to achieve this certificate, then their time and effort invested in doing so was a complete waste! Do you ever feel this way?

My view is a different one – if I learn anything about horses whilst studying a horse course, then already I have gained. A qualification is a wonderful thing to achieve and be able to show, but this is never my incentive for taking on further study. What is yours?

Years ago a line really resonated with me in a sermon at church: ‘Every setback is a set up for a comeback.’

Just because you seem to be taking longer to achieve something doesn’t mean it won’t happen. And if your end goal is a piece of paper and it seems that this isn’t likely to occur, is this the end of the world?

I’ve had a lot of ‘setbacks’ in my horse learning journey so far. But they’ve been in some cases, just what I needed:

• I was told that I couldn’t study horses in high school as they are dangerous, and a phase that every girl goes through and grows out of – this led to getting my parents’ support, completing the course and achieving the certificate of excellence for that course in 2001
• This also led to the creation of this blog a few years later, as I set out to prove that horses are a viable career option
• I applied for the Irish National Stud scholarship at my TAFE and missed out on this; I applied for the course externally and was knocked back that same year – thanking the stud for the opportunity, I was able to find out that if I gained 12 months industry experience, I would be taken into the course
• I started that course (12 months later than planned), a lot more capable and informed horse person
• I applied for a Certificate III in Equine Nursing in 2009 – I was knocked back for this because my incentive was further learning, rather than a job in the equine nursing industry
• This led to me enrolling mid year in my equine science degree instead, which is helping me to greatly increase my technical and theoretical knowledge
• I thought that by the time I’d been out of high school five years, I’d have purchased and be running my own horse property – that’s still a goal! But now going into my eleventh year out of high school, I know that I am in a better position now financially, theoretically and practically than I would have been six years ago
• July of 2012 I got kicked in the head by a horse and at this point, I haven’t been able to work again with horses since, as I’m still building up my strength and looking after my head – the passion is still there and I’m still working in an equine (education) field
• This shows me that horses for me are indeed for life

Horses will forever be about learning; no person in the world knows everything there is to know about horses.

Don’t be discouraged by any educational setbacks. Instead, sit back and ponder, ‘although this seems a setback for me, how is it setting me up for a comeback?’

“A Dog looks up to a man, a cat looks down on a man, but a patient horse looks a man in the eye and sees him as an equal.”