This has been at the front of my mind over the last week or two. A subject that has not really interested me since my teaching days when it was thought that cross-laterality often accounted for pupils getting behind with their reading and maths skills.
I go on Wednesday to have my right eye cataract 'seen to'. My sight has deteriorated rapidly, so much so that I can only see the top of my garden through a 'mist'. On having my 'pre med' consultation I noticed - and remarked upon - the fact that the consultant was left-handed. Some folk may think this 'rude', but my view is that the days are long gone when on these sorts of occasions one has to treat the person 'in charge' with deference. I feel strongly that I need to establish some kind of relationship with anyone who is about to tinker about with some part of my anatomy - a very intrusive act and not one I care to have seen to by a perfect stranger. We had an interesting conversation about it. He said, "All the best people are!" And went on to ask if I was.. I'm not but my son is.
I know for sure that I was born with a propensity to be so and when my son showed the same it reinforced the view. My mother was constantly threatening to tie my left hand behind my back if I didn't hold my spoon with my right hand. My infant teacher (we still had slates and chalks in my infant days) would rub out my work and make me start again if she caught me writing my letters with my left hand.
My son at first, although quick to read long before he began school, when writing liked the teacher to put a mark where he had to start writing otherwise he would rattle along quite happily from right to left. * Of course quite few countries do their script right to left - but not so here.
Often countries eat with their fingers rather than with tools and usually keep their left hand for 'unclean' activities.
There is no doubt that cross-laterality can cause some children to have a bit of a slow start in the three Rs. (Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic). Cross laterality applies to hand, eye and foot.
Today I have bought a new vacuum cleaner - a cordless one which was delivered by our local electrical shop. J, the owner, kindly brought it round for me, took it out of the box and put it on charge. I no longer write my own cheques as the bank is happy to return it unpaid if I have forgotten to cross a t or dot an i. My signature -14 letters long and with 4 t's - I have hopefully perfected. So J wrote the cheque out for me to sign. And I noticed he too was left handed.
He confirmed that his treatment at home and in first school was in many ways the same as mine (and he is forty years younger than me). Old habits die hard. Mr Google advises me that prejudice against left handedness only began to die out in this country towards the end of the twentieth century. And the Consultant told me he often had the back of his hand tapped with a metal ruler if he was caught writing with his left hand.
I can't help wondering what other 'habits' we have that in the future will be considered so very old fashioned.
*Leonardo was a left hander and quite a lot of his writing is mirrored.
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30 comments:
My great-aunt used to say, often and proudly, "I never had a left-handed child in my school." The Latin word sinistra is for left-handedness. It was viewed with suspicion. Thankfully not any more.
I could mirror write with both hands when about four...and tended towards left handedness. 1950s and 60s schooling steered that to the right unfortunately.
So my handwriting (right) is sometimes of the drunken spider kind....but being able to use a screwdriver either hand and use both when working in clay has definite advantages
Well I'm 76 and can honestly say that I've rarely noticed what "hand" any particular person was and I'm surprised that left handness is of such a concern to some people. I suppose the same people who try and stop people being left-handed would also take action to try and stop people stuttering, etc. Must be bigger problems in life than someone's left handness.
I'm a leftie so I too notice others of the same propensity. We seem to have one in every generation in my family - an uncle, me, a nephew and my almost 2 year old great niece is showing the tendency as well.
Yes, parents and teachers tried to get me to change - the result is that I tend to do some things right handed - I bat and golf right handed but shoot pool left handed. In a right handed world I've had to learn to do most things like the majority but - it sometimes happens that I can do one thing with my right hand while doing something else with my left - at the same time - which seems to freak out people.
I have worked mostly in Communications with writers and designers and a very high percentage were always left handed - which was very interesting. Margie in Toronto
The late Queen's father was born left-handed and made to use his right hand. This caused him great anxiety and thus he stuttered badly, poor chap. I have noticed that in many cases artistic people are left handed, but I don't know if there is any connection. In families who are mostly right handed, there is often just one left hander. I wonder how this comes about. I am extremely right handed and find it so difficult to use my left hand. Thank goodness children are no longer punished for using their left hand.
Everyone in my family is/was right handed but I can remember when I was a small child and occasionally when I was much older, my mother would mention "You're doing that left handed!" as I did something other than writing.
My FIL was left handed and was so very pleased when we gave him a pair of left handed scissors about 50 years ago.
Hugs!
Re Leonardo - his mirror writing features as a plot device in the book 'The Da Vinci Code'.
At my grammar school our Latin master had a trick for using the whole blackboard - he would start writing the line at the left side of the board with his left hand, swap chalk to his right hand in the middle, and carry on to the right with that right hand, and you could not see the join - the blackboard scrip was identical with both of his hands! Incidentally, that same master managed to get very high pass rates for both Latin and Ancient Greek from pupils by making the lessons fun, he was one of the best teachers that I've ever had.
It has been my observation too like the previous commenter that many in the creative businesses are left handed.
I seem to recall that I was ambidextrous when I was very young. The school I went to had unusually enlightened teachers and there was no correcting of this tendency, but I gradually settled into doing most things right-handed - perhaps just to be like everyone else. However when I used to play cricket I always batted left-handed and bowled right. Nowadays the ability of batters to reverse their hands and hit the ball in different ways is regarded as something of a super-power!
I am also left handed, and so is my grandson. I also had the same treatment with teachers trying to make me use my right hand. When I broke my left hand fingers and elbow, plus the bones in between a whole year elapsed with me trying to write R/H. Never did manage it neatly.
I am left-handed. When I first started elementary school in Southern Illinois, USA, in the late 1940's, my teacher told my parents that he no longer believed in forcing children to be right-handed, and that the whole school district was starting to change their attitude. My only problem was when we were finally allowed to use the "new" ball point pens when I was in my sixth or seventh year. Left-handed people tend to hold their hand above or over the top of the writing line with the pen in a downward position. That causes the hand to drag across the previously written words, smearing the ink on the paper and the side of the hand holding the pen. I decided I would force myself to hold the pen like right-handed writers and forcibly forced my hand into that position. I would leave the school at the end of the day with such a cramp in my hand I could hardly hold anything in that hand. But by golly, I write like a right-handed person and have beautiful penmanship admired by many.
My father used to talk about teachers using a ruler to slap his left hand when he wrote left handed. He continued to write lefty through his life. Hopefully, the anti-left handed demand is long gone. It does seem very punitive. I am right handed but use my left almost equally as well.
I am right handed, my left hand definitely doesn't always do what I want it to. P writes with his right but does most other tasks with his left. I have to set out his knife and fork the "wrong" way round at the table.
Derek - the left hand was associated with the devil. But also in my teaching days cross laterality undoubtedly caused reading problems. It is not the left handednes that was the problem it was folk not being allowed to use the hand that was natural to them. Heather's comment about George VI stammer is another example - areas of the brain develop at different stages during childhood and these things are of great significance in teacher-training especially with the less able.
I am left handed and happy to say no one tried to change that. My grade school teacher was amazed that though I was left handed my penmanship was so good, she would display it in the class. There is a book about dangers that left handed people face, including when driving in the US and the right side of the roads.
Fancy the left hand being associated with the devil Weave! Makes me admire the animal kingdom more. They just get on with it. We humans come up with all sorts of hocus-pocus and intolerances.
My mum is left-handed and is delighted her nephew is too. They are the only ones I know in my family on both sides. - Pam.
I am left-handed, as is my brother. My mother, also, was left-handed. Of my 4 children, only one was reliably so, although 2 of the others showed degrees of ambidexterity. Teachers tried to "change" my mother, although none succeeded. She protected my brother and me from that indignity by being very vocal about her preference for left-handed children.
We had a right hand drive car in Grenada and I found it awkward getting used to shifting gears with my left hand as I am right handed. I was ok with driving on the wrong side of the road. My brother started out left handed but was forced to change at school.
I have six grandchildren and half are left handed. It all came from their fathers. It's interesting.
The left handed issue was dealt with in a very negative way. Kids suffered.
One of our two sons is left handed, and it never was a problem at school or elsewhere. I strongly suspect that my husband is left handed because he uses his left hand as well as his right one. But my mother-in-law was just the type of person to force her son to use the "right" hand and not the "wrong" one. And his handwriting was always bad and is now almost unreadable, sometimes even for himself!
I have never heard of 'prejudice' against the left-handed. To me it was simply an alternative.
Cro - there is still some prejudice here but more in other countries.
Red - interesting comment as you were a teacher like me you were able to experience it.
Thank you all so much. Although I have been retired for forty years I still like to keep up to date with things. Any teacher who has had to deal with children of all abilities will understand how important it is to let the child choose which hand to write with. I fear there are still many countries where the left hand is considered inferior and there is a lot of proof as to how damaging this is to many skills.
I do not believe there could be prejudice in schools today in Great Britain about what hand you write with.
They're too busy trying to get children to actually go to school these days Rachel.
Very interesting post Weaver. You are correct Rachel, things have thankfully moved on in this country. I used to run courses for teachers twenty plus years ago on how to support left handlers with developing their handwriting. There are practical strategies, as simple as awareness of seating arrangements (not having a left handed seated to the right of a right handed), teacher’s modelling letter formation and pencil hold as left handlers. I was very interested in the development of handwriting. Interestingly one of my anecdotes was that your name / signature was one of the first things you learnt to write and also the last you retained - thinking of the days of cheque books! I thing the anecdote still stands.
In a family of right handers my brother is left handed and he has the most beautiful script writing.. He even won an award in school for it. I never heard from anyone in my family that his left handedness was discouraged.. Hugs! deb
My father was a lefty who was changed to a righty by a well meaning (?) school policy. His writing was tough to read. I am left handed. All my children are righties, but I have two grands that are lefties.
My mum was lucky. She was born in 1924 and they let her remain left handed. I'm right handed but do somethings with my left hand as well. My grandson is ambidextrous which I'm sure will bother some teachers, oh well.
My grandfather ,in the 1910s, was forced to write with his right hand at school. When I knew him in his 60s, he would only print his words, no script, as his handwriting process had been so destroyed. But I don’t believe any of his descendants are left handed. Olivia from the PNW in the US (frequent reader, rare commenter)
I’m left handed and found it difficult to get very high speeds with Pitman’s shorthand. Left handers have to push to write the symbols, whereas right handers can pull.
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