The Sustainist: February 2021

One of the most important truth-discerning skills I learned as a child was counting. My earliest memory of my mother was her teaching me how to count to 10 using my fingers. That was how I knew I had 10 fingers: I counted to 10. And of course, I assumed that everyone in the world had 10 fingers until I met a friend in grade school who had 11 fingers. I knew the truth, in this case a rare exception, that not everyone has 10 fingers, by counting with my friend. Counting is the first thing we learn that would later help us do more complicated mathematics, which then was a key part of scientific exploration in learning the truth about our world. Knowing how to count correctly in order to learn the truth of the will of the people is how a democratic society move forward in settling our difference without going to war.

When the people of my beloved nation could not agree on the number of people who attended the 2016 inauguration, and then in 2020, many would not accept the final count of the votes casted at the federal election, I know we, as a nation, are deeply unwell for lack of truthcare. Perhaps an exploration on the basic understanding of counting would be helpful in healing our nation, beginning of when the children.

A while ago, I was invited to be part of the For the Know Better, Do Better Project, the mission of which is to create alternative songs to racism-embedded folk and popular songs, especially those commonly sung for and with children. The name is inspired by the Maya Angelou quote, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” I decided to write an alternative song to Ten Little Indians, which is probably one of the most popular songs used to teach children to count – counting forward to 10 and backward to 0.

Most songs that teaches children to count backward in the United States, unconsciously and consciously teaches children about scarcity – if you do something wrong or don’t follow the rules, you will be eliminated. Just like playing musical chair, which I hated as a child because I was never fast enough to get my chair and there were less and less chairs available as we counted down. In the case of Ten Little Indians, the elimination process is so violent with accidents, murders, and suicide, I can’t even repeat the original verses of the song.

The song was written in 1864 to be performed in minstrels shows. A few years later, the word Indian was replaced with the N-word and became a standard in blackface minstrel shows in England and America. Over time, the N-word was deemed insensitive, so it was changed back to Indians, then to soldiers, then teddy bears and then bunnies.

Agatha Christie made the song more famous through her million-seller murder mystery with the same title and later changed to And Then There Was None – the last line of the song. Ten Little Indians, as Christie understood it correctly, was basically a song about death, murder and genocide. I had no doubt that when it was performed in minstrel shows, the audience found it funny.

Even though most teachers don’t use the verses when teaching children how to count with this song, we should know better and do better.

The alternative song I proposed is called Counting Counts. I want a song with a lively beat so children can move and dance to it with pointing gestures. I also want a song that doesn’t teach scarcity or elimination, but about being included and counted. Finally, I want to write a song that has a long life: after the children had learned how to count, they can continue to sing it as adults and be reminded of why counting is such an essential skill for living. Counting minutes help us get to places on time, counting the days and years help us celebrate birthdays and anniversaries. Counting is what makes a democratic society great - we count the votes so we don’t need to go to war to settle our differences. We count who live in our land through the census so we can distribute our resources justly. So let’s make counting counts.

Here is the video of me singing Counting Counts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PplZHuxjnQY

I also included the lyrics and the chords (there are only four chords). Also the song can be touch without accompaniment: snap your fingers to keep the beat. Use it to teach our children to count and why counting is so important. Share it in teachers of your local schools, and Sunday schools. Teach it in children's gathering. Teach it on zoom. Tell Sesame Street that they do should do a muppet video on the song.