Dumping Thumbkin

    There are so many songs to choose from when teaching small Japanese children. Any song that also includes hand gestures or a dance of some kind usually works well to engage the kids, even the youngest ones. Any experienced teacher has their preferences for which songs they find most useful and which ones they could really do without. One song of the latter category for me is Where is Thumbkin.

Personal feelings toward Thumbkin? It's a no from me.

    If you haven't ever heard of this song, don't worry. I had been teaching in Japan for years before I heard it. To sing the song, the teacher starts with their hands behind their backs and slowly brings out one hand and then the other with the appropriate digit held up alone. The song as I have heard it proceeds like this, to the tune of Frere Jacques:

Where is Thumbkin? Where is Thumbkin?

Here I am. Here I am.

How are you today sir? Very well I thank you.

Say goodbye. Say goodbye.

    The teacher then repeats, replacing Thumbkin with Pointer (index), Tall Man (middle), Ring Man (ring) and Pinky in succession.

    What do I find so unappealing? Just because I didn't grow up with it doesn't mean it's not a good song for kids learning English. If I only sang songs that I grew up with, I would never do Head Shoulders Knees and Toes, either. In fact one of the only songs I can remember that is allegedly appropriate for children would be about eating worms.

    More importantly, as an educator, I find the words and gestures problematic for their own respective reasons.

    First, the words. If I'm going to teach these kids words for phalanges in English, I would prefer to use accurate vernacular. The opposable digits is not a Thumbkins but thumbs. A pointer finger as an index finger is normal enough in English, but my middle finger is not a tall man and my ring finger is not a man at all. The pinky is fine, but if the entire song is Thumbkin, Pointer and Pinky, it wouldn't be much of a song. It turns out one kids channel on Youtube had similar reservations.

    Then, the gestures. Let's go back to that middle finger. When a teacher brings their hand out from around their back with only the middle finger raised, the situation can be problematic. The last thing I want is for some misguided kid to try to show his parents what he learned in school and accidentally use one of the rudest universal hand gestures.

    There are older generations of folks in America and Japan who point with their middle finger instead of their index finger and that's a special problem, but I don't want to add to this by using a song in which we use the middle finger raised alone.

    I also do not like this as a conversational template. When we are greeting in short form, there's not much of a reason to bother saying goodbye, but even if we do, we only say "goodbye" and not "say goodbye" which honestly sounds slightly menacing. Some versions of the song use "Run away" instead, and that is even worse. "Run and Play" is the least bad, but is still awkward in conversation and does nothing to remedy the rest of my issues with the song.

    If we need a song that uses our hands, Itsy Bitsy Spider is infinitely better, uses real words, and teaches size differences in addition to resilience and weather.

    Do you have any specific views on Thumbkin? Are there other kid songs you specifically do not like?