Re: Left-handers and learning

Anthony Scott (tony_scott who-is-at hotmail.com)
Thu, 11 Feb 1999 17:01:40 PST

Ken Goodman said:
Oi vey! Looking for links between left-handedness and a variety of real
and imagined defects is the ultimate in confusing difference and
deficiency. I'm trying to imagine how all those dyslexic left-handed
baseball pitchers manage to control a baseball with such should I say-
dexterity? Or is just another quirk of their sinister nature?

My response: I think the right handed world is deficient in not
accommodating to my difference, but with only 10% of homo sapiens having
this particular difference, there maybe aren't enough of us and we are
too thinly spread to be a profitable market!

Switch-hitters: as a cricketer, I bat right handed and bowl left
handed. This is fairly common amongst cricketing left handers. The
left hand is the steering hand and the right hand is the power hand.
Cricket bats are asymmetrical so the steering hand does the work of
setting the angle at which bat strikes ball. I think it would be much
harder to be a switch hitter at cricket than baseball. Also, I am
recommended that if I ever take up golf, I should try playing with
right-handed clubs before investing in very expensive left-handed ones,
because the same body-part task assignment applies & could even be to my
advantage.

Body language: which leads me to wonder if some relevant research might
be found concerned with body language and/or phys ed. I think it was
Allan Lukes who was doing some research in Queensland on the body
language 'performed' by young children engaged in learning. I wonder if
their body images/learning styles had a handedness component.

Also, what theories are there that inform sports coaches how to deal
with issues of left handedness in 'asymmetrical' sports? and is e.g.
"classical" dance handed and therefore dance education 'handed'?
[Square dancing definitely is!]

It occurs to me that we are emphasising "Western" cultures in this
discussion. I believe the Mongolian language is written UP the page.
Are Mongolians "ambi"? And what about some Pacific Islanders who are
equally comfortable reading or writing in all four directions? How do
left handers fare growing up in language communities where the proper
beginning IS the (Western-perspective) 'back' of the book and where the
writing on the page DOES go from right to left? Are right-handers
disadvantaged in such language communities? As it happens some of these
communities have extensive prohibitions on what one should and should
not do with one's left hand...very sinister!

Tony Scott

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