About ten years ago, Luca had an idea: to give his girlfriend a puppy as a birthday gift. The puppy, named Iris was a starting point. After a few months, Luca bought a clicker and started to train Iris. The discovery of clicker training was his light bulb moment. Luca gained the CAP3 certification in 2006. After this he started his career as a professional dog trainer, even though his main activity remains Archaeology. Luca holds a Bachelor’s degree In Archaeology from Padova University. In 2008, Luca’s first son, Alessandro, was born. As a new parent, Luca became more focused towards using positive reinforcement with his son. Karen Pryor’s “Reaching the Animal Mind” introduced him to TAGteach. This was a real life changing event, that led Luca to attending one of the first TAGteach seminars in Europe.
“Working with animals through positive reinforcement is an experience that enriches you. Bring this same experience on the relationship with people is something that changes your life! The first time I read about TAGteach I immediately said “I MUST do this!” And it’s true: my life and myself changed. TAGteach has increased my awareness of what the other people are doing and why they’re doing it (and I can guarantee you. if you have a four years old boy this a really helpful skill). I became a “TAGthinker”. Constantly I strip down things happening around me and reassemble them in tag points. The challenge now is to be able to introduce the TAGteach here in Italy. In this my thanks go to TAGteach International for their help and support and to Theresa McKeon who last year agreed to held a Primary workshop here in Verona, and this year she took on the challenge of co-present with Laura Monaco Torelli and myself the Dynamic Duo Seminar. My goal with this seminar is to share the deep similarities that exist between education and training humans and animals. When we all will know that there’s a new, caring methodology –that works-, to deal both with people and animal I think the world will be a better place to be in”.
Luca has used TAGteach with volleyball and basketball teams, with his clients and with his son. He also learned medieval swordplay with his nephew using TAGteach methodology and more recently with archery and classroom teaching. Luca is a classroom teacher and has used TAGteach for teaching skills and behavior management with typically developing kids and with kids with special learning needs.
“My latest implementations of TAGteach were classroom management and Olympic Archery. In the classroom I’ve used TAGteach both for mechanical skills (i.e. pen holding, writing and reading) and for helping kids with cognitive disabilities. The tricky part of TAGteach in classroom? Well, it’s not so easy to find a good reinforcer that could work for 25 eleven year olds!
Olympic Archery: oh man, I do love this sport! I’ve begun regular training last July and since then I’ve used TAGteach basically with myself with the help of my trainer. TAGteach is perfect for Archery (and for the other sports and… for everything else!); basically Archery is all about performing the same behavior over and over again. Consistency is the key for Archery. You can be consistent shooting hundreds of arrows per day for years or… you can use TAGteach.”
Luca is a member of the TAGteach Faculty. He is a very experienced TAGteacher with both the practice of TAGteach in sports, parenting and classroom teaching (with typically developing kids and kids with special learning needs). Luca has attended and taught at many TAGteach events. Luca offers TAGteach Workshops and Certification Seminars in Europe in both English and Italian. Visit http://www.tagteachitalia.com/ for more from Luca.
