Left Handed Catholics?

[MGEISING]

Anyone out there left handed? And did you attend parochial schools and get hit on the hand with a ruler for being lefty?

Back in the early 70’s, I used to get hit in parochial school. I got bruised one time (i bruise easily) my mother had to finally go down and tell Sister … I wasn’t going to change my writing hand and PLEASE stop hitting me

 

[SMHW]

Anyone out there left handed? And did you attend parochial schools and get hit on the hand with a ruler for being lefty?

Back in the early 70’s, I used to get hit in parochial school. I got bruised one time (i bruise easily) my mother had to finally go down and tell Sister … I wasn’t going to change my writing hand and PLEASE stop hitting me

I’m not left-handed but I have two daughters who are. I am somewhat ambidexterous so I would use my left hand ‘for fun’ on occasion.

When I was attending parochial schools in the 1960s and 1970s the sisters had no problem with students using their left hand to write. Instructions for were given to students on how to use whichever had was dominant.

But the sisters told us that ruler thing was done to THEIR schoolmates when they were children.

 

[Lance]

I do some things left handed and some things right handed. I eat and bat left handed but write and throw a ball right handed. The only one I seem to do well is eat. My daughter is lefthanded and no one in public or parochial schools made any attempt to change her.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

I was in elementary school in the 1960s, and the sisters did not use the ruler on me. It was actually a LAY woman teacher in the 1st grade who tied my left hand behind my back and forced me to use my right hand to write. I grew to dread the “penmanship” song, I can’t use scissors properly, and to this day I wish that I could make that wonderful Palmer script. . .but that is water under the bridge. Probably the woman had good intentions. . .and even if she didn’t, well, God forgive her.

Both my daughters (but not my son) are left-handed, never had any fuss or comment made about it in school. Things have changed for the better, I believe.

In all the years I was in Catholic school, I NEVER saw nor heard of one of the nuns using a ruler on a recalcitrant child. Children stood in the corner, wrote apologies, and as they grew older were pressed into service mopping floors and weeding gardens, but a ruler? Never.

 

[MGEISING]

Lance:

I do some things left handed and some things right handed. I eat and bat left handed but write and throw a ball right handed. The only one I seem to do well is eat. My daughter is lefthanded and no one in public or parochial schools made any attempt to change her.

I write lefty - but do everything else righty … which is wierd. Neither my folkers were lefty … and one of our daughters is lefty …

I think it happened to me because it was the early 70’s … we have the sister’s of Notre Dame … great ladies … just some of them thought that lefty = evil!

 

[carrieloon]

I am a lefty, too, and one of the nuns who taught me from 5th through 8th grade had a rule that all books should be kept on the top of the desk (as opposed to inside it, like most teachers wanted them), on the left hand side. At the beginning of the year, I just moved my books to the right side of the desk. She flipped out and made me keep them on the left side. So I would rest my arm on this tall stack of books and attempt to reach my paper to write. THEN she decided that I couldn’t rest my arm on the books and I had to hold my arm up in the air (elbow sticking way up and hand touching the paper). I could only do this for a short period of time before my arm started to tremble and I couldn’t write any longer. She would get furious if she caught me putting my arm down on the desk to write.
Also I was very embarrassed to have to write in such a silly way with my elbow up in the air and the other kids looking at me and snickering.

My mom finally stepped in and after an extended argument, Sister relented and allowed me to rest my arm on the desk but I still had to keep my books on the left hand side of the desk. So I had to cram my arm behind the stack of books and attempt to write! And this is how it stayed until 8th grade was over and I started high school.

Even then I knew it was a silly thing to fight over and insist upon, but I made it thru and am still a lefty, although my penmanship is not so hot!

Carrie

 

[Annunciata]

Lance:

I do some things left handed and some things right handed. I eat and bat left handed but write and throw a ball right handed.

I can relate, one of my sons is ambidexterous and still plays softball in an adult league .
BTW,
I know some Sister of Notre Dame and I have never heard of such a thing from them…
Are you talking about the “olden days”? (of which I was never a part ). I have heard horror stories from Catholic friends though…The “wacks” that hurt me most were, that they were told by some of the “good sisters” that they shouldn’t have me for a friend because I was a Protestant…:crying:

 

[MGEISING]

I have terrible writing!

 

[MGEISING]

Annunciata:

I know some Sister of Notre Dame and I have never heard of such a thing from them…
Are you talking about the “olden days”? (of which I was never a part ). I

Yes, it was probably 1968 ish … so it was golden all right - but I an not yet a GOLDEN GIRL!

 

[Annunciata]

MGEISING:

Yes, it was probably 1968 ish … so it was golden all right - but I an not yet a GOLDEN GIRL!

Well I guess I would be considered one…Annunciata

 

[SMHW]

MGEISING:

II think it happened to me because it was the early 70’s … we have the sister’s of Notre Dame … great ladies … just some of them thought that lefty = evil!

The Sister’s of Notre Dame gave you grief for writing left-handed? In the 70’s? Wow!

That’s who we had in California and even little old Sr. Mary Roseann had no problem with lefties in 1964-65.

Now my 14 year old daughter hates the desks at her Catholic High School. The desks fold around on the right hand side for the arm. But the left side is left open to enter and exit the desk. There is no place for her to rest her left arm when she writes. She just did a speech on some of the problems lefties face.

 

[MGEISING]

SMHW:

The Sister’s of Notre Dame gave you grief for writing left-handed? In the 70’s? Wow!

At one point in my college career prior to graduating with a BS in Marketing … I went to Secretarial School - and while taking steno … there were no lefty desks. My teacher, who was a nun (Sister’s of St. Joe) let me put to desks together to get a proper working space … THANK THE LORD … do you know how hard it would be to take steno in a righties desk?

 

[deaconswife]

I attended public school in the sixties and they did their best to break myself and other lefties from writing with the left hand. I had some teachers who actually tied our left hand to the desk to prevent us from using it. I think that they felt it would make our life easier if we wrote the way that the majority of the world does.

 

[MGEISING]

deaconswife:

I attended public school in the sixties and they did their best to break myself and other lefties from writing with the left hand. I had some teachers who actually tied our left hand to the desk to prevent us from using it. I think that they felt it would make our life easier if we wrote the way that the majority of the world does.

That is frightening!

 

[John_Higgins]

I and my three sisters all attended the same parochial school, staffed by Dominicans of the Adrian variety. I am the oldest and am left handed and met no resistance. In fact we had a nun who taught herself to write left handed as well so she could teach us lefties.

Now my sister, five years younger than I was forced (I don’t think physically) to write right handed. She’s none the worse for wear (although she doesn’t remember Catholic grammar and high schools as fondly as I do) and our handwriting is nearly identical.

John

 

[luckyirishguy14]

That happened to my grandmother! She ended up amidextrous in her writing!

 

[Ray_Marshall]

I went to grade school in the early 50s. None of my regular Benedictine teachers tried to change me.

The Benedictines were great and I owe them a lot for my good education. :clapping: I never recall anybody being yelled at or unfairly punished. I did see a student being punched once for acting up in a fire alarm line, but he just laughed. I saw him in Church some time ago, so it didn’t alienate him, I guess.

But one day in second grade or so, a substitute teacher came in because the regular was sick, I suppose. One didn’t wonder about things like that back then.

Well this nun was REALLY old. [She was probably my age now]. It turns out that she had taught my Dad thirty years earlier. My Dad was too old for the ruler by then, so she knocked him out of a pew one day with a hefty blow. He was snickering with some kid across the center aisle and didn’t see Sr. ______ approaching from behind.

Sr. _________ that day, grabbed the pencil out of my left hand, put it in my right, told me to use it that way, and then returned to the front of the room. I quickly changed the pencil back to it’s “proper” location. She never tried to change me again.

Other than having strange penmanship, and ink constantly covering my left hand for having it rub over fresh ink, I don’t see a major problem with being left handed (I bat and golf right handed). In fact, in using tools, it is often and advantage.

I can use far more things with my right hand than rigthties can use with their left.

 

[space_ghost]

born left handed, do everything left handed, went to school and wrote left handed. Was never struck for it, but Sister Alice Elizabeth (4th Grade) made sure i turned my paper the right way (or is it the left way, oh nevermind) so i wouldn’t have my hand turned in the position of a claw!

 

[Fidelis]

I’m 47 years old and never attended parochial school.

I have always considered myself left handed, but in fact I only write and throw a ball (badly) with my left hand. Everything else I do with my right, or with both hands. Even when I eat, depending if I am sitting next to a leftie or a rightie, I can eat with either hand equally well.

I’ve noticed that more “lefties” are at least somewhat more ambidexterous than most righties, maybe because we’ve had to adapt to living in a rightie world.

 

[MariaG]

In highschool in the 1980’s I volunteered in a handicapped P.E. class. Out of the 17 students in there ranging from celbral palsey to downs syndrome, only two were right handed. The two right handers had been injured after birth. I have always wondered if that is part of the prejudice that people used to have against lefties?