Auditing the auditors

Anyone who has been to a horse clinic, either in participation or in auditing, has probably seen or heard this person: the one in the security of the audience who feels it is his or her “job” to yell rude instructions to the folks trying very hard to learn from the instructor, not the auditors. I guess I just don’t get it. First of all, it is plain bad-mannered. Second of all, the participants managed and mustered to pull together their guts and bucks for a chance to work with the instructor. The auditors chose not to participate, are there to observe and learn. We learn better by watching and listening, don’t we? Not by swearing we have the answers and yelling them out from the safety of the bleachers. Just a nice little reminder. More and more clinicians are taking the time to ever so politely remind the auditors that they are there to observe, not to teach, and if they absolutely have something to say, to go somewhere else to say it. Thank goodness. Clinics are a place to learn, let’s allow them to be a positive learning place and experience.