Finger Play: A Pedagogical Reflection

There exist various voids and vacancies in our educational discourses.Indeed, there is talk of egocentrism and cognition in children, of the infant's ability to grasp and let go, and of the child's developing sense of self and other.However, rarely has educational discourse seriously dealt with the hand.We might wonder why educational and developmental theories have focused so heavily on the head and the heart (thinking and feeling), on the mouth and the genitalia (verbalization and sexuality), and so lightly on the hand.I would like to ask what may be the pedagogi cal significance of the hand by examining the common early childhood practice of finger play.The Object This little pig went to market, This little pig stayed home, This little pig had roast beef, This little pig had none, And this little pig cried, Wee-weewee-wee-wee, All the way home.Please picture the vivid scene that the words of this finger poem call forth.I do not mean just the observational scene of the visual senses, but also the imaginative picture constituted by our other senses, including our reflective faculties, so that an inner view, a whole image, some kind of essence emerges.And if we now combine the picture of our external perceptions with our inner feelings, childhood recollections, and pedagog ical reflections, then the scene rapidly turns extremely complex and pregnant with meaning.The logic of verbal discourse forces us to transform the simultaneity of impressions into a sequential order, so I can make a beginning anywhere in reflecting on the scene of finger play.The scene of finger play repre sents a strong sense of particularity and intimacy together with a high level of commonality and generality.In this "play" the child is most likely seated on the lap of an adult-most likely the mother, the father, or a grandparent.For the sake of this description let us picture mother and child.The bodies touch and stir each other, the lap of the parent is for the small child the safest and most comfortable spot in the world.