A horse will give you his cooperation either through fear or trust. However, if you gain his support through fear or punishment, you will never completely achieve the highest levels of performance.
Horses respond better to kindness.
So do humans. He and M.B. Flippen, a teacher and psychotherapist in Austin, Texas, who works with troubled youth, have developed a relationship-building curriculum that is used in about 600 schools nationwide. This parallels Monty's work with horses. Flippen suggests that teachers shake students' hands every morning and have them write down rules they want to abide by, and name appropriate rewards for following them and punishments for infractions. When a horse responds to a raised arm by flaring its nostrils or throwing its head up, it is a sign it has been hit in the head in the past.