The Wisdom of the Hand

Back to the theme of machines replacing humans. In my book Teach Like It’s Music, there’s a chapter titled: “The 4H Club: Hand, Head, Heart, Hearing.” Here I suggest that a thorough education touches all four aspects of our human faculties, developing each as organs of intelligence.

In the section on the hand, I talk about the two big evolutionary advances that allowed for a brain development that put us at the top of the hierarchy despite our lesser speed, strength, sensory awareness compared to our animal kin. The first was the opposable thumb, which opened the door to tool use. Anthropologists speculate the tripling of brain size between Australopitchecines and Homo Sapiens was due in no small part to a million years of tool use.

The second advance came from the change to upright posture, from a four-legged being to a bi-pedal one. Because the hand did not have to support weight, it was free to take on other tasks. See tool use above.

The punch line is that the hand helps shape the brain and each new human being's intelligence (remember “phylogeny recapitulates ontogeny?”) replays that evolution as the young child first begins to grasp objects and later manipulate them, moves from a slithering being to a crawling one to an upright one. Their verbal and abstract intelligence proceeds side-by-side with increased ability to carry things, build towers, use spoons/forks/ chopsticks, put on clothes, tie shoes, use pencils, pens, markers and paintbrushes, chop carrots, fold clothes, play drums, bounce balls, shape clay and on and on, each advance with greater precision, control and mastery.

The old children’s song “The Mulberry Bush” helps children practice a wide range of hand motions as it mimics old-fashioned ways of work— “This is the way we wash our clothes/ rake the garden/ stir the soup/ stack the hay/ milk the cow/ dial the phone, etc. etc. and etc.” But the modern version does all these things the same way— with a push of a button with a finger or thumb. The grand intelligence of the hand and its great sweep of expressive movements reduced to one, one that works electronically and doesn’t require the nuance of touch, the different weight or energy or grace. And that makes a difference not only in the quality of our life, missing that sensorial engagement with smooth and rough and cold and hot and soft and hard surfaces and the different feel of wood and metal and fur and skin and flesh and more, but according to the wisdom of the hand-brain connection, can affect the level of our brain’s intelligence.

Music (and art) are great antidotes to the move to replace hands and bodies working with machines doing it all for us. The diverse motions of percussion instruments— shakers, scraper, wheeled ratchets, struck drums, rung triangles and bells— alongside acoustic instruments like fingered recorders, plucked guitars, bowed violins and more, is a carnival of hand intelligence. 

Thinking back to the Mulberry Bush, I began to make a catalog of simple work motions, not all of which are obsolete yet, but all endangered. The list— incomplete— is impressive. And depressing when you look at how much richness is lost when our clever machines do it all for us. Read it out loud and have your kids do the motions! Then make up some new verses.

CARNIVAL OF HAND MOTIONS

© 2019 Doug Goodkin

 

Shelling the peas, grating the cheese.

Slicing the bread, making the bed

Kneading the dough, tying the bow

Dialing a phone, pulling meat from a bone.

 

Drying a dish, cleaning a fish

Turning the key, pouring the tea

Beating the egg, twisting the peg, 

Turning the knob, scraping corn from the cob

 

Hammering the nail, sorting the mail

Winding a clock, giving a knock

Sawing the log, petting the dog

Chopping the wood, opening the hood

 

Turning the screw, buckling the shoe

Washing the clothes, sorting in rows

Hanging the shirt, digging in dirt

Stirring the soup, scooping the poop.

 

Packing the bag, wringing the rag

Pulling the weed, stringing the bead

Spraying the can, waving the fan.

Shaping the pot, untying the knot

 

Sweeping the floor, opening the door,

Raking the leaves, binding the sheaves

Scraping the ice, looking for lice

Shoveling the snow, shooing the crow

 

Pushing the broom, cleaning the room

Watering the plant, killing the ant

Strumming guitars, driving the cars, 

Playing the flute, buttoning the suit.

 

Tying the tie, zipping the fly

Typing on keys, bending the knees

Shaking the drink, wiping the sink

Combing the hair, eating the pear. 

 

Opening the jar, washing the car,

Pouring the beer, shifting the gear. 

Popping the cork, lifting the fork

Beating the egg, stretching the leg.