I would like the person reading this to stand up, for just a moment, please, and with both hands, imitate an orchestra conductor directing an orchestra. (Okay…just make the moves sitting down.) Thank you.
I know you have made these symmetrical moves with your arms, probably many times. We like to do them; they are so easy, and feel kind of good. Inward, outward, inward, outward, from the center to the outside.
This movement is the key to why many, if not all, left-handed people have had trouble learning to write. And when we do become skillful at it, we write with our left hand twisted or turned in an odd-looking position. (Yes, I am one of these awkwardly-writing lefties.)
In our culture, people read from left to right; we write from left to right. But in relation to our bodies, we write from inside to outside. The orchestra leader swings his arms with ease, each hand moving outward in its own direction. That is the way right-handed people write.
But left-handed writers are denied this comfortable, natural movement. We are required to cross over, in effect, writing from inside to outside—on the wrong side of our body. It would be much easier for us if we could write from right to left.
In fact, some left-handed children do start out writing backwards, a practice that is termed, “mirror writing”. This is a problem; it causes much grief to parents and teachers of these writers who simply start out the natural way, toward their left side. The problem usually evolves, with gentle help, into writing toward the right. But harsh coercion in this training has been known to cause children problems later in life.
Though I didn’t start out with mirror writing, today I can write backwards pretty well, and with a sense of freedom—as if I have more room to move, with no restriction.
When I first learned to write, I struggled to produce the awkward, misshapen letters I turned out. I clearly remember trying to copy the perfectly-written specimen of my name that I was supposed to replicate. I sweated over it—I hated and dreaded writing class. I was a terrible writer, and endured scoldings for it. It was embarrassing; I was a good student, otherwise.
With this ordeal still fixed in my memory, sometimes even today, when I write my name, I recall that impossibly beautiful capital “E” I had to copy. (My name, so you don’t have to look back and check, is Esther.)
I understand now that I was a problem to my teachers, as the only lefty in the room. They tried to make me do everything as the right-handers did it. My fourth-grade teacher made us all turn our sheets of lined paper the same way on our desks. As she walked between the rows of seats, if any paper wasn’t turned quite right, she straightened it. She also arranged our hands so they were poised to take off toward the right. If I tried to turn my hand differently, she corrected it for me. Crossly.
And then, one day the wind must have been blowing favorably, or the stars were aligned helpfully, because I found the courage to turn my paper around on my desk. What a difference! Instantly, it was easier to write. The lines on the paper slanted in a way that enabled me to move my arm more freely, with my hand turned naturally. For days after that, I waited for the teacher to make me switch the paper back, but she never did. I wondered if she herself might have learned something about left-handed writing.
Weeks later, one day she lifted my paper from my desk. She carried it to the front of the room, where she held it up beside one of my earlier papers, to show the class how much my writing had improved. She was right, there was a remarkable difference. I enjoyed the praise; in fact, I reveled in it. But I couldn’t help also thinking, is she covering up what really happened, or doesn’t she know what happened?
But I was content. I was less anxious, I didn’t have to dread writing class anymore, and my whole life seemed easier.
However, I still coped with another problem that lefties face. When right-handers write, they expose their work. But when left-handers write, they cover it up. If they don’t do something about this, they can’t see what they are writing.
I was inventive though, as all lefties have to be. When I had turned my paper around, I soon learned to roll my hand backward and slide it along on its fatty, outside edge. This pretty well exposed the writing.
However, it presented still another problem, which I have never really solved. As my hand slides along, it sometimes smears any wet ink where I’ve just written, or even soft graphite pencil. Throughout junior high and high school, I dirtied many of those lined, tablet sheets. I struggled to keep them clean, and erased so much, my erasers got very dirty. (I’m sure you know what a mess you can make with a dirty eraser.) Even today, when I write a check, I always sign my name first, at the bottom, while there is nothing written above it that can be smeared.
When I see other left-handers writing, I watch to see how they manage the job. Lately I saw a woman writing with her hand clenched into a fist, wiggling the pen in her first finger and thumb, and writing well above her hand. President Obama curls his left hand around the other way, and writes below it. (This is called the “hook” position.) I think it probably exposes his writing very well.
Happily, these difficulties lefties have faced may actually be ending. Today’s educators are asking if it is really necessary to teach cursive in the schools. There are strong arguments both for and against: one side insists that technology is taking away the need for cursive writing; the other side reminds us that we need to read historic, hand-written documents, such as our Constitution. So far, California schools are free to choose which path to take.
President Obama is the 8th left-handed American president. That’s 8 of 44, or over 18%, while the percentage of left-handers in the general population is about 11%. I think most of us are aware of the large number of famous lefties, but I will name a few: Charlemagne, Leonardo de Vinci—(who wrote his notes backwards), Julius Caesar, Napoleon, Helen Keller, Judy Garland, Bill Gates… I borrowed these from a list of hundreds of names, from M.K. Holder of Indiana University.
Why have so many well-known people been left-handed? I can suggest my own hypothesis. They probably all struggled when they were little, learning to write. Could this early ordeal, of having to work harder than other children, have started them out on a lifetime of striving harder to achieve?
