The Advisory Hour

I had a principal, many years ago, who was the kind of principal that everyone loved. The faculty loved him, the students loved him, and the parents loved him. He was a goofy, well-meaning guy who made the school feel like a second home and paid respect to each individual he encountered in a day. 

He was also full of stories and anecdotes. You know the kind.

One year, as all of us faculty piled sleepily into the lecture hall during the first days of back-to-school inservice, he passed out a sheet of paper. On the paper was a picture of a golf course fairway. Mown into a sand trap was the unmistakable silhouette of a monkey. The text above this picture said “Play the ball where the monkey drops it.”

Huh. Okay. 

As we began our nuts-and-bolts conversation about the upcoming school year, our principal paused and said “I want to share this story with you.” He proceeded to read us an excerpt from a book he’d brought¹. He shared:

The story is told of a golf course in India. Apparently, once the English had colonised the country and established their businesses, they yearned for recreation and decided to build a golf course in Calcutta. Golf in Calcutta presented a unique obstacle. Monkeys would drop out of the trees, scurry across the course and seize the golf balls. The monkeys would play with the balls, tossing them here and there.

At first, the golfers tried to control the monkeys. Their first strategy was to build a high fence around the fairways and greens. This approach, which seemed initially to hold much promise, was abandoned when the golfers discovered that a fence is no challenge to an ambitious monkey. Next, the golfers tried luring the monkeys away from the course. But the monkeys found nothing as amusing as watching humans go wild whenever their little white balls were disturbed. In desperation, the British began trapping the monkeys. But for every monkey they carted off, another would appear. Finally, the golfers gave into reality and developed a rather novel rule:

Play the ball where the monkey drops it.

As you can imagine, playing this unique way could be maddening. A beautiful drive down the centre of the fairway might be picked up by a monkey and then dropped in the rough. Or the opposite could happen. A hook or slice that had produced a miserable lie might be flung onto the fairway.

It did not take long before the golfers realised that golf on this particular course was very similar to our experience of life.

My principal paused again, before bringing the point home. He reminded us that in education, there is so much out of our control. We cannot control whether our students have eaten breakfast, the arguments that may have occurred in the car on the way to school, the time they went to bed last night, the social circles they maintain, or the pull of social media. In fact, we cannot control most of what shapes their day before they walk through our door. But instead of bemoaning, fighting, or complaining about it, we recognize that it is. We take the students who walk into our door, as they show up, and do the best we can with them. We create a second home, a safe space to learn, and a place for connection and discovery.

I am thankful that I heard this little story so early on in my teaching career. I took that paper and hung it up in my classroom. I looked to it regularly as I navigated moments with students—both the difficult moments and the moments worth celebrating. And, that paper traveled with me to two more classrooms after. Now that I am no longer working from a school building, that paper hangs in my home as a reminder to extend grace: to people, to situations, and to life. I cannot change who people are. I cannot always affect their context. (And in many cases, nor should I). But I can choose how I show up and support them.

This is the idea that the Advisory Hour was built on. If you are an educator or a caretaker of a student, you too have to play the ball where the monkey drops it. Children do not need “fixing.” Education and learning cannot be “hacked.” We can advocate for students and shape their context where possible, but ultimately, we love them as they are when they walk through the door.

And so here, in this space, I hope to share with you the tips and tricks that I learned through my many years in the classroom—the little nuggets that could work for the learners in your life as well. Let’s take a look at your student, as they are, and support them in the ways that we can.

So, jump into this round with me—and we’ll agree to play the ball where the monkey drops it.

1. The book he read from was Play the Ball Where the Monkey Drops It: Why We Suffer and How We Can Hope by Gregory K Jones ↩︎