Learning right from wrong… and left

Last weekend a strange thing happened during my second class of the day.  One of my students, on task and thoroughly absorbed in her writing, sat scrawling using her left hand; something virtually unknown in these parts.  As children, ‘lefties’ are instructed to go against all natural instincts and use their ‘right’ (in both senses of the word) hand.

Rumour has it; parents take it in to their own hands to solve this problem until their children learn to use their ‘right’ hand.  I’ve witnessed my Jumpstart pupils picking up pencils, crayons and board markers with their dominant ‘wrong’ hand, only to correct themselves and struggle on with the other.

Western ‘lefty’ colleagues are ridiculed by all and sundry – be it the teaching assistants, students or laundry ladies as they write their name on receipts.  It’s something people openly guffaw at and see as circus-like.

Thank you to the parent’s of my ‘lefty’ student for restoring my faith in modern Vietnamese parenting: there is hope.

A xx