Bird Droppings August 3, 2010
Rising to the possible or to get the banana

“If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating, as possibility! “Soren Kierkegaard

The great existentialist Kierkegaard offers a word or two of wisdom in this quote. It has been nearly seven years since in a graduate school class in our groups we were asked what three wishes would we ask of a genie. It was a simple group exercise and had answers that ranged from the obvious to more than obvious. In even that not one wished for “the passionate sense of potential”.

“There is nothing with which every man is so afraid of as to getting to know how enormously much he is capable of doing and becoming.” Soren Kierkegaard

Perhaps in life we so over whelming try to avoid what our potential truly is we procrastinate, we deny, we walk away and we literally do all we can to not attain our potential. It could be that we may be afraid of failure. Some may simply not want recognition and others choose to languish for languishing sake alone. It may be that others may bask in obscurity a few honestly may be lost in their journey.
Since I first read and learned of B.F. Skinner many years ago sitting in those hallowed halls at Mercer University in Macon Georgia, behaviorism has been a part of me. While I do not consider myself a true behaviorist I daily see the implications in advertising, in family settings, and in schools. In a graduate class an article was passed out no author could be found and this morning as I do I researched several hundred hits on the internet and found the story but at each try only vague connections to psychology 101. I would like to share this story that shows in life how we stifle each others potential and becoming.

“Start with a cage containing five monkeys. In the cage, hang a banana on a string and put a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the monkeys with cold water. After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result — all the monkeys are sprayed with cold water.

Pretty soon, when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it. Now, turn off the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his horror, all of the other monkeys attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.

Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm. Again, replace a third original monkey with a new one. The new one makes it to the stairs and is attacked as well. Two of the four monkeys that beat him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs, or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.

After replacing the fourth and fifth original monkeys, all the monkeys which have been sprayed with cold water have been replaced. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs. Why not? Because that’s the way it’s always been around here.” Author unknown

One internet hit even had he could find no reliable research to prove this in his reading however in life we see this sequence continually. I offered up in a graduate class many months ago that in the teaching field new teachers come to school on day one and are passionate and ready to take on the world and by the end of the first semester they tend to be holding the new monkeys back at the bottom of the stairs. I know water hoses at least at my school are not used. What is it that creates that stagnation in the zeal and passion of teaching? What is it that strips away that search for and desire for “the passionate sense of the potential”?
It is not only in the teaching d field in so many jobs and workplaces. I rationalized all the way home from my graduate class on how this scenario could be changed many years back. You could add a bigger stronger monkey to the group. But in the end that monkey would be worn down more than likely as well and even the water reintroduced as a possibility. Although as I watch in my own school I have never seen any water so far in any way shape or form. Is it removing all the conditioned monkeys I watched that happen and saw it taking place a few years ago and often in the end that too fails. Could it be politics and such as they are in our world? What about making the incentive worth the effort, worth being hosed down even when it is only a glimmer in the training memories of a few? What if the incentive was worth the chance?

“There is nothing with which every man is so afraid as getting to know how enormously much he is capable of doing and becoming.” Soren Kierkegaard

Anything is possible and it is perhaps challenging us to that end. Since the early 1900’s there has been progressive thought in education. My old friend and mentor John Dewey had great ideas in the early 1900’s. Carl Rodgers, with so many more great ideas, again called progressive which implies a forward thinking movement. Yet one hundred years later what amuses me is John Dewey is still a progressive because tradition won then and now. Recently I read in a journal on education an article on how we need to keep education simple, reading, writing, and arithmetic. We need no change even as federal and state mandated testing demands higher scores and such we struggle with progress in thinking.
In looking at ideas of how to do education, they are there. Our schools use a concept called “learning focused schools”. I watched briefly, very briefly Larry the cable guy on comedy central a few nights back. I could see him borrowing that line “learning focused schools” well what should we call it “failin focused schools”. Ivan Illich writes about “deschooling society” that we have become too institutionalized, too focused we hold each other back. We limit ourselves habitually and often unknowingly. I often fall back on the illustration of an experienced teacher panicking over not finding the masters and overheads for a subject they claimed to have taught for thirty years. Illich points out we have become so institutionalized we see experience the time on a job and certification as the keys never looking at job performance.
We institutionalized the concept and become so limited and what we see is to keep the monkey at the bottom of the stairs rather than let anyone get to the top. We stifle creativity, limit mobility and soon even monkeys who know better that have read Dewey, Fried, Rodgers, Kohn and others have learned the fear of water even though there has not been any in years. Amazing it is behaviorism at its best.

“This is what is sad when one contemplates human life, that so many live out their lives in quiet lostness… they live, as it were, away from themselves and vanish like shadows. Their immortal souls are blown away, and they are not disquieted by the question of its immortality, because they are already disintegrated before they die.” Soren Kierkegaard

I wish I started today with a wish by Kierkegard, a wish for “the passionate sense of the potential”. What if we could instill that wish in our children and students and break the cycle of holding each other back at the bottom of the stairs. It may take a few more bananas but even in today’s economy they really are cheap. Please keep all in harms way on your mind and in your hearts.
namaste
bird