Are We Trainers or Teachers?

by Niki Tudge Copyright 2015

This is an excerpt from my new book due out in early December titled  People Training Skills for Pet Professionals – Your essential guide to engaging, educating and empowering your human clients To learn more click here 

If we work on my premise that many of our pet business operational or service woes are a direct result of a deficiency in our hands-on people training skills, then perhaps we should establish whether we are in fact trainers, teachers or neither. 

In 15 years of operating within the pet industry, I have only heard two people stipulate quite emphatically that they are people trainers as opposed to animal trainers. I am still rather amused by a t-shirt I purchased back in 2001 that read: “You’re the dog trainer, I am the obedience instructor.” To be more accurate, perhaps it should have read: “I am the people instructor.” I personally have never picked up the phone to a border collie enquiring about my service prices. I have never had the pleasure of handing homework assignments or making follow up calls to a tenacious Jack Russell terrier. Nor have I ever been able to facilitate an Australian shepherd writing a check or mastering my credit card machine. Even the transfer of knowledge and augmented product services are delivered to two-legged individuals who stand upright rather than their furry charges.

Upon examination of the literature incorporating the topic of teaching versus training, it becomes apparent that teaching is theoretically oriented whereas training has more of a practical application. Teaching facilitates new knowledge while training helps the knowledgeable learn the tools and techniques to apply that knowledge. Teaching penetrates minds while training shapes habits and skills. Teachers provide information and knowledge while trainers facilitate learning. Or, as Clay H. Trumbull (1890) states: “It has been said that the essence of teaching is causing another to know.” It may similarly be said that “the essence of training is causing another to do.” (Rao, 2008). You may agree that there is probably a difference between being a trainer and a teacher, but can you articulate the difference?

Let’s refer to a pair of dictionary definitions, this time from Merriam-Webster (2015):   

a)  To teach: to cause to know something, to guide the studies, impart the knowledge, to instruct.

b) To train: to form by instruction, to make prepared for a skill.

A general review of the relevant literature concludes that training focuses on skills and narrows the focus, possibly over a shorter period of time. Typically, we also associate training with repetitive learning until we achieve skill competency and the skill becomes second nature. A select review of literature discussing the subject of teaching suggests that, in contrast to training, the search of or transfer of knowledge is deeper and broader, and takes place over a longer period of time. We often say learning is a lifelong occupation. Essentially, the goals associated with teaching and training are different. I am not suggesting that these roles are mutually exclusive. We need to balance our roles between teaching and transferring knowledge, and training and getting the job done. We must help and support our clients so they can help and support and facilitate their pets’ learning. Training is an interactive activity that helps us to perform skills. It requires learning by doing and experiencing practical activities (Pollice, 2003). I conclude here that training is a subset of teaching, if you will. It helps reveal the hidden talents of people who begin a training journey.

The table below  highlights some of the topics that we, within our scope as trainers and behavior consultants, touch on when teaching our clients. I have separated them into topics that require skills training, hands-on competency and those that require teaching, the transfer of knowledge. I think it is fair to say that the majority of these activities – even the teaching activities – are most appropriately taught alongside or simultaneously with the skill training exercises.  

Table : Individual Skills that Fall under either Training Activities or Teaching Knowledge  

  This is an excerpt from my new book due out in early December titled People Training Skills for Pet Professionals – Your essential guide to engaging, educating and empowering your human clients To learn more click here