“Monkey Ladder Experiment” sometimes called the “5 Monkeys Experiment”.

 

I was thinking about the answer given by Robert Matthews (馬學進) from Taipei who said that there is no reason to change Bopomofo as it has worked for decades. This reminded me of the story I read on the Internet several years ago.

In case you haven’t heard of it, here’s a quick synopsis of it:

A group of scientists/researchers place five monkeys in a room that contains a ladder in the centre and a banana atop the ladder. It isn’t long before one of the monkeys attempts to go for the banana but as soon as that happens, a scientist comes in and sprays all the monkeys with ice-cold water from a hose.

If any other monkey attempts to go for the banana the same thing happens and continues to happen until all the monkeys refuse to go for the banana.

At this point, a scientist switches out a wet monkey with a dry monkey who has no idea what’s been going on in the room and is probably wondering why everyone is so wet and angry.

This new naïve monkey spots the banana and attempts to go for it but instead of being hosed down by a scientist, the other 4 wet monkeys hit him, preventing him from touching the ladder.

One by one the rest of the wet monkeys are replaced with dry monkeys and each one attempts to go for the banana only to be violently stopped by the other monkeys. It eventually gets to the point where no wet monkey is left and only dry monkeys are in the room. Yet, they still won’t attempt to grab the banana thinking something bad will happen if they do.

Often, we do things the way we have seen them done by others. The only reason we do it that way is because that is the way it has been done.

No one questions the way it is done and it continues being done in that way even when a better way is shown. 

 

i.                    I wrote to the Chinese Embassy in Malaysia and they did not bother to reply to my emails.

ii.                  I also wrote to the chinesemission@yahoo.com and they too did not respond. On the other hand, why would the politicians take action when they are probably aware that it is the intelligent kids who will shut down/ disengage from learning to read? They would not want intelligent kids to grow up into adults and challenge them in politics.

iii.               Robert Matthews disabled comments on Quora after I posted them on my blog. Was it done by Robert or was he instructed by someone in authority?

iv.                Are there no academicians in China who want to question me on my findings? Could it be because of the Chinese ‘save face’ factor? They can’t accept that a Malaysian can come up with a solution to intelligent kids being unable to read in Pinyin and English.