Oh dear! Just when you thought the discourse regarding education was getting rather strange, comes a most odd suggestion.
Apparently, because I haven’t been given specific training about teaching left-handed students, I am risking their self esteem. I wonder why people assume that teachers have an inability to apply common sense to the needs of their students:
Every teacher should be trained to recognise the needs of left handed children, a former minister has said.
Teacher training and the national curriculum should be overhauled so that children are given the space and “correct implements” to achieve the same results as right handed pupils, Peter Luff said.
The current lack of understanding is leaving the “self-esteem and self-worth” of left handed children at risk as they often end up struggling with right handed scissors or having cramped, illegible handwriting because teachers are unaware of their differing needs, he said.
The former Conservative defence minister said children were left feeling “clumsy and awkward” in the classroom and on the sports field and were not being able to reach their full creative potential.
Mr Luff has written to David Laws, the Schools minister, asking him to bring a simple set of guidelines into mandatory teacher training that takes into account the “slightly different needs” of those children who favour their left hand.
Mr Luff told The Telegraph: “If teachers are made to realise that someone is left handed, then maybe there are some things that they would want to do differently than for the rest of the class.
“Using left handed scissors, writing differently, having the mouse on the other side of the computer. In the sports room they could be taught how to use a bat or racquet in a better way.
“There are all sorts of small things which are terribly, terribly easy to put right – it’s just that teachers need to be told as part of their training to look out for those kind of kids and make sure their slightly different needs are addressed thoughtfully in the classroom.
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Tags: Education, Left Handed, News, Peter Luff, Peter Luff left handed students, Political Correctness, recognise the needs of left handed children, Teacher Training, Teacher Training left handed students, Teaching left-handed students
Topical Teaching 
March 20, 2014 at 11:26 pm |
OH BOY! Really? It’s funny my husband is left-handed and is a veterinarian, I think he reached his full potential without teachers specially trained to work with him.
Now that being said as a teacher in an elementary school there are times I wish I was ambidextrous such as when I’m teaching handwriting it is easier to show a child how to write if you can write with the same dominant hand but they will learn either way. I have a fourth grader who is left-handed and always puts the mouse on the left side of her computer it works for her so all I ask her to do is put it back on the right at the end of class. I don’t think teachers need special training, most are observant enough on their own without being told to watch for things like lefties.
March 21, 2014 at 12:30 pm |
Exactly! If you have to train teachers to make common sense adjustments, you can’t rely on them at all!
March 21, 2014 at 9:59 am |
Seriously?? I was homeschooled. My mom was left handed, while my brother & I are both right handed. The only effect this seems to have had is that I more easily adapt to do things left handed than most righties. Do they think left handed people should not be teachers, since they will have to have “special training for their special needs” as part of the minority?? LOL
March 21, 2014 at 12:26 pm |
Well put!