Day: December 27, 2017

Sometimes my students reveal unexpected, surprising talents. The other day, because it had come up in some discussion of the word "ambidexterous," a middle school girl named Hyein announced that she could write equally well with both hands. I was somewhat skeptical, so she proceeded to write a demonstration on the whiteboard. She used her left hand. The writing was smooth and was comfortably quite fast, hardly slower than when she normally writes with her right hand. It exhibits her characteristic "messiness" that is also typical of her right hand, too – it reflects the same handwriting style, I guess you could say.

I was duly impressed. This is actually a pretty rare skill, and had always seemed to me to be indicative of quite a bit of both mental and physical acuity.

Hyein shared her story, though: she said that when she was 6 or 7, her mom had seen her writing with her left hand, and had told her she had to do it with her right hand. This is, of course, common in Asian cultures (and earlier-era Western cultures, too). So the girl is a "native" left hander, but in having been shifted to the right hand when younger, she retained her left-handed ability. Of course you hear about this happening all the time, but I had never run across it experientially, before.

[daily log: walking, 6km]