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Show Home& School Lefties misunderstood by schools? By Dr. Daryl J. McCarty Executive Secretary Utah Education Association One minority that has been misunderstood for centuries may not be a minority forever. Persons who belong to this group are left handers. A survey of 899 parents indicates that the number of lefties is growing. Only seven percent of those parents are left-handed, but 10.2 percent of their 2,344 children favor their left hands. The people who made that study indicated that parents are no longer pushing their children toward right-handedness. right-handedness. That's good. It's good because other researchers have shown there's a relationship between bet-ween stuttering and children required to be right-handers, when their natural tendencies ten-dencies are toward left-handedness. left-handedness. One problem for southpaws, south-paws, as left-handers are sometimes called, is that some school desks are built with arm rests on the right side. This means that when a left-handed student sits at the desk, he or she has no arm rest. Writing that way is tiring, and the position probably affects penmanship. pen-manship. Some schools are ordering some desks with arm rests on the left side. For centuries, left-handed persons have been victimized vic-timized by superstition. They are referred to as "sinistrals," which is related to the word "sinister." Left-handedness has been considered by some bad luck. it didn't bring bad luck to Harry S. Truman. He was elected President of the United States. President Gerld Ford was also a lefty. So were Babe Ruth, Picasso, Benjamine Franklin and Michelangelo. The word "gauche", meaning clumsy or lacking social grace, is French for "left." A "left-handed compliment" really amounts to an insult. Despite all the kidding, the unfounded beliefs about left-handedness left-handedness and the difficulties dif-ficulties of living in a right-handed right-handed world, this 10 percent per-cent minority of our children proves time after time that from its ranks come some of the most skilled, talented, bright and accomplished persons in the world. |