If this is your first visit to Conversations with Frank, please read the intro.
… the power of patience, reflection and conversation…
Good morning, Francois!
Hi, Frank. What monkey do you have in the bag today?
*Both laugh*
Well, a monkey it is indeed. I have a story for you.
Ah! I can’t wait. What is it about?
Softlee, softlee catchee monkee.
Is that the name of the story?
No, that is my way of telling you to be patient and let the story come to you.
Alright. I’m comfortable and ready to listen.
One day, a very, very long time ago when people still lived in caves there was a hunter called…
Zog?
No, Zog came much later and did not live in Africa. Let’s call our hunter Dai. Simple, one syllable and I think nice on the tongue.
Sure. Dai sounds good.
Dai had been hunting for quite some time – he was a master hunter. He both hunted on his own and with the rest of the tribe. When hunting on his own he would get his prey, every day, and although the prey was small, his family knew that there would be something to eat. When he hunted with the men, they searched for bigger prey. His strength and speed and accuracy always helped him outwitting and catching even the wiliest old buffalo. Dai had earned the honour of being the best hunter and many stories about his prowess were told around the fires at night. What magic did he possess? What spirits favored him?
Perhaps Dai was just someone that learnt well.
Yep, most probably. You would think that he was happy.
Wasn’t he?
No. He was quite frantic actually. He had successfully hunted and fished and trapped and tracked every animal in the Savannah. He had even killed the lion that had taken some of the women and children of the tribe. But there was one thing that just outsmarted him each and every time. Monkeys.
People eat monkeys!?
Yes, they did and in some parts of Africa they still do. Let’s not get into that debate right now…
OK. So he was depressed because he had never succeeded in catching a monkey.
Yes. Depressed is the right way to describe it. His wife, uncles and aunts and grandfathers and grandmothers were at their wits end. His friends were teasing him. Everyone seemed to be telling him: never, let it go. The worst part is, because of his constant thinking about his problem he started losing prey.
Well, looks like catching a monkey was something that a lot of other things depended, not only his self-esteem, but also the family’s tummies!
You get the picture. So there goes Dai with his bow and arrows into the forest. The monkeys see him coming because they have very sharp eyes and they perch high up in the trees. So he wonders, how could I make myself invisible? On other hunts it works to cover yourself in twigs, leaves and grass and to stalk the prey. Perhaps that would work. What do you think.
It must work! Monkeys are not that smart.
Sorry to disappoint you, Dai. He got closer, but not close enough to take a shot. That was it, the last straw. He went to visit his great grandfather that lived on the blue mountains at the edge of the Savannah. His great grandfather was known as a wise and respectable man, but even he did not know how to catch monkeys. “Perhaps you should go to the monkey catching school.” “Grandpa, how can such a thing exist? No one has ever learnt to do this.” Dai returned and chatted to his hunter friends again about all kinds of hunting techniques, the best times of day, and the ways of animals. None of his friends could add anything new to what he already knew.
Poor Dai.
One day he was just walking through, the forest deep in thought and he did not notice how far away from the hunting grounds he was going. He suddenly found himself in unfamiliar territory, and he got a big fright when a massive troop of monkeys started barking and sniffing. This is closer than he has ever been to any monkey before. Something made him think: “If I could watch these wild monkeys for a time and learn exactly what their weaknesses are, perhaps I will learn how to catch them.” He spent the rest of the day, following the monkeys at a distance.
What did he notice?
Well, after a couple more days of tracking and observing, he noticed a number of things about monkeys. They are incurably curious and continuously turn over stones, climb trees and koppies, and explore the whole world around them in detail. They are also incredibly smart and know how to avoid danger – they are fast enough to stay out of reach of snakes and scorpions. They are also very social and there is a constant chatter and banter in the troop. When danger closes in, the guards make an unearthly noise and all the monkeys flee to safety in the treetops. He also noticed that they have a sweet tooth. They loved fruit and above all they loved honey.
That sure sounds like monkeys. Sounds like some people I know too.
Yep. So Day devised a plan. He thought that if he take one of the traps he use for small antelope and set it over a shell of fruit with some honey in, the monkey would put his hand through the loop, grab the honey and then be caught in the trap as he withdraws his hand again.
Did he try it?
For sure.
Well, what happened?
The monkeys just brushed the cord of the trap aside and stole the honey. Or they carefully pulled the honey free from the trap without letting the noose close around their wrists.
Poor Dai.
Well, Dai was one of those people that did not get discouraged by failure. He was more determined than ever. So he reviewed what he knew and decided to chat to his friends again about it. “You must make the hole of the trap smaller,” one said. “You must make the trap more firm,” another said. One of the boys listening what the hunters were talking about had a calabash into which he had made a hole to get to the seeds. He pushed his hand into the calabash and grabbed hold of a whole handful of seeds. When he tried to pull his hand free, he couldn’t.
Ah! Yes, I can imagine how that works. He had to let go of the seeds to get his hand out again.
A child is smart enough to realize that after a couple of tries, and then to find something else to scrape the seeds out. Now Dai made the link between his traps and the calabash… if the monkey does not open his hand… it was worth a try. At least he would be able to get time to use one of his weapons while the monkey is pre-occupied with his hand stuck in the calabash.
I imagine that Dai tied the calabash to something.
Yes, to make sure the monkey does not just run off with the calabash, he firmly tied it to a tree trunk. He knew that monkeys are so curious that they won’t let his calabash alone for long, so he walked away from the trap and hid himself behind a termite nest. Slowly the monkeys came closer. They saw the human sitting behind the termite mound, relaxed, nearly ready to dose off… one monkey came down and sidled towards the calabash. The big male sounded the alarm and all of them jumped back into the trees. Nothing happened – the human was sitting, staring far into the distance and not paying any attention to them. Then they came down again and one monkey bound over to the calabash. He sniffed it and ran off again. He sat looking at it from a distance for a while. Then he scrambled closer and grabbed it.
What a surprise! He must have nearly yanked his own arm off.
*both laugh*
Yes, after he dusted himself down, he walked back to the calabash with all the dignity he could muster. Then he sat down and took the calabash in his hands. He looked into it and smelled the honey sitting deep and firmly in the shell. He shook the calabash, but Dai made very sure that the honey could not be shaken out. Then he put his hand into the hole and closed his fist around the succulent prise. He was stuck. Dai rose and the monkey got such a fright that he started to run, but of course, he could not get very far.
Wat then!?
Dai came running closer with a bag and a spear and all the other monkeys scattered – running as far away as they could, while the monkey caught in the trap screamed blue murder.
Did he kill the monkey?
Day thought it would be so much better to arrive at the cave with a live monkey that he decided to catch the monkey with the bag.
What did he do then?
Well, he took the monkey to his great grandfather. “I’m going to start a school, Pa,” said Dai. “Hmm,” the old man mused, and what do you want to achieve with that?” I want to teach the hunters how to catch monkeys so that we can catch more monkeys. Then, if there are less monkeys around there are less of a chance that they would warn other animals when we hunt. And there will be more fruit for the women to gather. Actually, if the men catch monkeys they must pay me with a part of their hunt because I taught them this valuable thing.”
He thought about everything.
Yep, but his school would be like catching monkeys too; people do what they want to. So his wise old great grandfather said, “Perhaps it would be best if you base your teaching methods on catching monkeys.”
Frank, somehow I get the feeling that I’ve been caught here. What did you do with me?
Nothing. I had your attention by telling you a story and that is it.
But the story has another meaning.
Yes, for one thing. What would you say is the moral of the story?
If you want to catch something that is smart, quick and out of your grasp, you have to be smarter, have patience and understand how they work. Yes, that’s it I think. Softly catch the monkey.
Absolutely. Now, what did you learn about learning new things?
Aha! There seems to be a bit of an interaction between thinking on your own about a problem and chatting to other people… and there also seems to be a bit of a cycle of reflecting on the problem, coming up with new ideas, deciding what to do, and then doing it. Then again we look at what worked and what not, we get others involved in adding their learnings and we either try something again on our own or we get others to participate in this new way of doing or being.
That summarises it well. No school can teach that.
Interesting. Well, I have something to go reflect about.
Good. May the learinings from this story and from all the other stories and models you encounter delight and enlighten you in ways that make the world a better place for everyone you meet.
Thanks, Frank.
A pleasure. And remember, if something seems unsolvable, sleep on it. Put it out there and see what comes of it in the morning.
Good plan. I’ll be back with some questions.
That will be nice. We chat again soon.
Good bye, Frank
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References/further reading:
Honey & Mumford, Kolb – Learning Styles
“Wheel of learning” – The Fifth Discipline Field Book. Peter Senge et al, 1994
Social learning, informal versus formal learning.
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