Points Left …

Oh, bless! I’ve had just had Doctor Paul — he of Doctor Paul’s quiz site — leave a comment on my post about left handedness.

Nice to get one, I know that.

I also know I’ve had an email in from No Idea’s Adrian, who’s also another south paw.

Fascinating read, I should add; but here, let me quote …

“ Like most children of the 1950s and 1960s, I started to attend Infant School at the age of five. Within a few months, we were taught basic arithmetic. I was told to put the "big number" on the left hand side and the ‘small number’ on the right hand side. On asking which side this was, we were told that our right hands were the hands that we wrote with.

I proceeded to do the sums as follows:-

• 7 + 5 = 21 (i.e. 12 with the big number written on the LHS) - X
• 8 + 9 = 71 X
• 9 + 9 = 81 X
• 6 + 6 = 21 X
• 3 X 5 = 51 X
• 2 X 8 = 61 X

etc.

This continued for the whole year. I still have the arithmetic exercise books, with the reversed answers marked ‘X’ and not corrected. The left/right problem only came to light, when I took the school exercise books home at the beginning of the summer holidays and my Mother spotted what was going on.

I can still remember that I already knew that something was wrong and I must have guessed that it was to do with right and left, because I kept asking various teachers which hand was my right one. One Teacher pointed to my right hand (WOW) the others ALL said that it is easy to remember, because it is the (left) hand that I write with. The fact that even the teachers could not agree what was left and what was right, only helped to confuse me even further. Even now, if someone says ‘Turn left’ when I am driving and very close to a junction, I need to think first. The directions ‘left’ or ‘right’ aren’t instant, as they should be.

Reverting to infant school, despite having an I.Q. of 135 and being good at English etc, I was put into the ‘B’ class, rather than the ‘A’ class.

The school policy at that time, was not to keep moving children up and down the classes, so I had to stay in the ‘B’ class until the Eleven Plus exam. There were only twelve places available at the Bridlington High School for pupils from all the Hornsea schools and there were over 30 pupils in the ‘A’ class (and over 30 in the ‘B’ class) of my school so the school did not bother to put the ‘B’ class pupils through the Eleven Plus exam. I was therefore never given a chance to earn a place at the High School.

Fortunately, we emigrated to Ghana and I passed the entrance exam for Mfantsipim, Ghana’s Number One school (in the town of Cape Coast) so I got a year of excellent education (but I fell well behind in English History and European Geography).

I spent a year at the Ghanaian school, two terms at a high quality, but low morality boarding school at Ramsgate in Kent, then spent the remainder of my schooldays at a good (outward bound) school in Scarborough, Yorkshire.

Towards the end of my school career, I gained the ‘O’ and ‘A’ level entrance requirements to study for a degree at Coventry and duly passed the degree exams at the end of the course. The degree award ceremony was cancelled, because of the I.R.A. pub bombings and I received my certificate by post, but I was chosen to represent my college at a degree congregation and shook hands with the Duke of Edinburgh.

Fortunately, I got a good job after getting that degree. It is shocking to think that the ignorance of my infant school teachers, which gave me that very poor start, could have continued to have had an effect throughout my educational life. Furthermore, it could have prevented me from getting my degree and that would have stopped me from getting the good job that I wanted.

I believe that the effect of that bad start is still with me.

Apart from having to think about left and right, I still do not trust my own arithmetic. I always feel the need to be pedantic and I need to recheck my answers, whenever I do any mental, or written arithmetic.”

And I’ve got to admit, I know exactly what Adrian’s talking about, especially when it comes to Infants and Junior school.

I can still remember, through the long years, those early years at school. Especially — and constantly — having various teachers asking me “Well, wouldn’t you feel comfier using your other hand …?”, whilst having a bossy school teacher putting a pen into my right hand.

Or non-left hand, I should maybe say.

It’s still with me.

Whenever I need to physically write with a pen and paper, I usually find myself picking up the pen in my right hand and putting in my left.

The layout will also look fairly strange as well. The first line will be pretty much like this,

whilst the rest of the paragraph will be over here.

Mostly because I’ve needed to

give my hand some space to rest on.

I can also remember being called a ‘thicko’ at school — lovely how kids can be so nice, isn’t it? — because I got sent a long to a remedial teacher, to deal with my poor hand-writing. Who — as far as I can recall — put a rocket up my First Year senior school form tutor to let her know she didn’t have a dim pupil.

She had one that was LEFT HANDED!

One who, like many of us lefties, tends to suffer a bit with written English. Because, of course, English, like most European languages, is written from left to right.

Right handers get to pull a pen, elegantly and comfortably across the page.

Us lefties have to push the pen, and, as I think many of us will tell you, that’s very uncomfortable.

Cramps, ink-stains, weird calluses.

And that’s without the ongoing debate about whether any given lefty uses the Hook method of writing; something I’ve seen right-handers use as well, incidentally.

•••••

This is something I can go on about for hours.

In fact, I intend to. Once I can get a metaphorical nail to hang a post on.

But it’ll be after I’ve had some sleep; it IS getting rather late.

But, much like Adrian, I feel my early schooling — scarring? Maybe, although there’s others I’ve known, and know, who’ve had worse childhoods — I feel my early schooling has left its mark. I always mix up left and right, in giving directions. And usually find it easier to point …

And feel that it has dented my confidence. Maybe not drastically, but I believe it’s there.

•••••

But, talking of pointer’s, I had Dave and Paul over last night.

I loaned Dave my ’net connection, so he could set himself up a gmail account.

He’s a northpaw, so you know. One who found getting the hang of left and right clicking difficult.

Based on that, I’m going to suggest to any right-hander’s who wish a taster of lefty life that you — come Left-Hander’s Day, August 13th — switch your mouse over to left hand use; you’ll need to alter the settings in the either the system preferences or control panel, depending on your operating systems, and not just move the mouse from one side to the other.

Frustrating, isn’t it … ?

It’s partly why I believe left-hander’s have many accidents; the world isn’t built for us.

And that those of us around are somewhat more adaptable than many right-handers, when it comes to scissors, guitars, and heavy machinery.

We’ve had to be.