Monkey Business
For as long as I can remember I have been enamored with Curious George. Our local library had a film series that my Granny took me to every Friday. We diminutives sat, feet dangling, on grown up plastic chairs in front of a painted cinder wall where the cartoon would come to life, spurring our imaginations and driving our orneriness. My heart skipped a beat every single time the clickety clop of the projector signaled the arrival of that funny little monkey. I can’t remember if there was music or even what the narrator’s voice sounded like, but I can still hear the crackling of the film as I sat with bated breath waiting for the man in the yellow hat to stride across the screen, smooth the ruffled edges, and save George from himself.
I loved all of George’s adventures—the one where he kept calling the firemen, the one where he couldn’t say no to the balloons, the one where he was supposed to be delivering newspapers but just couldn’t resist making them into boats to float down the stream at the park. He was always up to something, and I knew, as we all always did, trouble was down the road. Even for a five- year- old, the impending chaos was never hard to see. That’s what we watched for, the mess he could make out of nothing. His unwillingness to obey, I must admit, made me antsy, yet I loved to watch his wide eyes question the newness of his world. George drew you in with his innocence, but without his Vaudeville quizzical nature, he was just a cute monkey. His curiosity was the quicksand that sucked us in and kept us coming back for more.
For all the full and multi-dimensional George was, without the flatness of the man in the yellow hat, the stories never would have worked. He was so flat he didn’t even have a name. The guy was smart, predictably so, and he was kind, always and without fail, but beyond that, the man in the yellow hat didn’t have much going on. He just slipped in and out to cage the monkey tales without ever getting too much in the way. He was the straight man for the comic in cartoon form. Essential, but not sticky. You slid right off him.
Hanging out with George, however, was like walking through a spider web.
I think I would have loved to have had George, the ornery monkey, on my team. He was never just ok with much of anything. Neutral was definitely not his happy place. He always wanted to know why and when and where and how. And what else, what else, what else! Athletes with that kind of unfettered curiosity don’t just move the ball down the field, they move the goal line. Their infectious digging changes the game for all involved.
For coaches, the questions of truly curious athletes are like oxygen. Their seeking enhances our understanding. It clears out the corners of hard to reach places making us better at what we do while simultaneously reminding us of all we love about it. I once had a point guard who showed up at my office early every morning on the day after a game. She wanted to watch film to see what she had missed. Or could have done better. Or should have looked at to make a different play. She didn’t do it to revel in her Sportscenter moments (though she often did, as there were plenty), any more than she did it to stick a pencil in her eye for a missed wide open lay up or the pass she threw to the other team. She did it because she was curious. She wanted to understand the game. And together we would forage. That was the best part of my day.
She did it because she was curious. She wanted to understand the game. And together we would forage. That was the best part of my day.
If curious players are oxygen for their coaches, they are stick-um for their teams. Questions are the burps that follow the internal digestion of interest and concern, a deep desire to understand. Teammates who want to know who they’re lined up alongside of endear themselves to one another. Curiosity is like people glue. There’s just another level of commitment when you know your receiver’s brother’s name and that when he has free time, more than anything, all he’d like to do is fish. Likewise, the connection between a point guard and a post player becomes symbiotic because of the reps and the skill, for sure, but also because of the human being knowledge that you get when you spend time together and you ask questions about one another’s life. It’s as if you know what her favorite song is, you can almost feel where to throw her the ball. Or if she knows what you loved most about your grandmother, you can catch anything she tosses your way. If you haven’t ever played team sports, that might sound crazy. But if you have, you feel that viscerally in your fingers and your soul. Teammates who know the people inside the jerseys play on another level. A level you can’t get to if you don’t seek to understand.
Children are the real bastions of curiosity. “Why is the sky blue,” they ask. “Because the ions bounce off the sun and blue light waves are shorter than the others. That’s why we see blue.” an overzealous dad who watches too much of the Discovery channel at night, explains. To which mom, who is the reader, responds, “That’s not exactly right”. And then real talk ensues. Digression goes to sunsets and water molecules and the role gases play in the atmosphere. And, “Are these gases like the ones that smell up the car?” Eventually, the case is tried by Google. (Smart phones are good for something) And the discovery is that dad was actually kind of right, but that he would have benefited from an interpreter. That’s where mom comes in. She’s a wizard with all sorts of languages and signs. Oddly enough, kids stay engaged in such messes. It’s funny the things that stick in the crevices of their minds. So, everybody learns something, even if it’s something they already knew and just forgot, or something that is really not of great importance at the time or maybe ever. And the one off is that you’re reminded what a great team you all make together as you sludge through the stuff you’re just not sure of. Curiosity masquerading as mortar while you’re driving down the road. A lovely way to live.
“Why is the sky blue,” they ask. “Because the ions bounce off the sun and blue light waves are shorter than the others. That’s why we see blue.” an overzealous dad who watches too much of the Discovery channel at night, explains.
I have a friend whose daughter asked her recently, “Mom, when I pray, why do I have to say ‘Amen’ at the end? Why can’t I say “A girl”? I mean, I’m a girl. What does ‘amen’ even mean anyway?”
“Well,” her careful and compassionate mother responded, “ ‘Amen’ actually means ‘so be it’ so you’re really just saying at the end of your prayer: God, go ahead and do your thing. So, no, I guess you don’t have to say ‘amen’, you can say anything you want, really. It’s your prayer, after all.”
To which her daughter thoughtfully responded, “I’m gonna say ‘a girl’. That’s what I’m gonna do when I’m done talking to God.”
And so she does. (And don’t you know He gets a kick out of her!)
Precious child hearts search from a place of purity. Because they genuinely want to know. They reek of magical curiosity, the kind that opens spaces “Do not disturb” signs long ago locked down.
Questions are where ideas come from. And they’re how problems get solved. They’re also how we figure out how to get along together when an impasse is at hand. “Seek first to understand, and then to be understood”, Stephen Covey said. Boy, that can be hard to remember when everything is tangled up and messy. And it might be one of the things that make children so special: they don’t have to be told to get the order right, from the get go they are hungering to know.
George was my first crush of the curious. Everything he encountered was new, every experience was a first for him. So the mold got broken. And all of us who watched him or read about him were given the gift of looking at a thing from a diamond shaped window in the corner of the house instead of from where we had always looked-- the boring and predictable front door. I have long loved people who hang upside down to see.
I also have an affinity for people who ponder, especially out loud. And I appreciate those who test the waters, who aren’t afraid of jumping in. Digging gets us dirty, and in binds, and in need of help--sometimes, to get out of a mess we made because we couldn’t help ourselves. But that’s how the wrinkles of experience get carved. Messy is where the miracles live. I worry about a world that hasn’t time for wondering, for head scratching, for pursed lips and hair twisting. Robert Fulgham once said, “To ponder is to wonder at a deep level.” Nobody ever pondered better than Curious George.
To this day when I walk into the public library, I breathe in and think of George. The smell of cold books sandwiched between tin shelves reminds me of all I used to wonder about and all I still don’t know.
Sometimes as teachers and parents we think we’re supposed to have all the answers. But I’m not sure that’s really our most important job. Maybe we’d be better served to prompt the questions and fade into the background to subtle safety patrol while those for whom we are responsible twist and squirm and learn. Like George, and the foil who made him famous, the man in the yellow hat.
Sherri Coale
P.S. Just for fun….in case you’re curious….55 Thought-Provoking Questions