People often think of being left-handed, left-footed, etc. as bad. The French word for left is “gauche.” This word also describes a clumsy person. The word “right” has been associated with good and correct in words such as “righteous”. Another example is in a Bible story when God sorts his flock. He blesses the sheep by putting them on his right side. Then God punishes the goats by putting them on his left side. This made left-handedness suspicious to people. However, despite the negative outlooks,  left-handed people make up about 10 percent of today’s general population.

“I do feel like the minority because I know that there aren’t that many left handed people in society,” Jacquez Worthy joyfully said.

From 1932 to 1970, left-handedness in the U.S. rose from two percent to ten percent. About ten percent of the population has always been left-handed. Since everyone thought of being left-handed as odd, they forced children to become right-handed.  While some people think this only affects how you write, it also deals with how your brain functions. The brain has two hemispheres, which are connected to nerves on the opposite side of the body. The right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, whereas the left side has control over the right, often called cross-wired. With left-handed people, the right side of the brain learns mostly from the manual skills and controls the left hand do. The brain’s dominant half is what determines a person’s hand preference for life. This is why when a child is told to write with their non-dominant hand, it doesn’t work. It also negatively affects that person because it confuses the two sides of the brain and can increase the risk of a Psychosis.

Being left handed can also affect your job. “I have a problem with the dry erase marker because when I write the marker is in front of my hand, so my hand tends to drag through what I wrote. I had to learn how to write differently then my normal hand writing on the board,” explained math teacher, Mr. Potter.

Now, there are advantages and disadvantages of being left handed, but what can we, as a nation, do to fix it?

Mr. Potter suggested that things become more equal between left and right-handed people, “Hmm, I mean there are a lot of little things that I think are designed with right handed people in mind. Maybe some design changes would help, for example, gear shifts cars. I’ve seen cars where the gear shift is on the steering column instead of way off to the right.”

It’s possible that whilst living among predominantly right-handed people, many have looked over the struggles that left- handed people deal with on a daily basis. Have you?