We all usually write with one hand: right or left, in the case of left-handed people. There is also a very small percentage of people who are ambidextrous, that is, able to use both hands to write. But would you have ever imagined that in India there is even a school that teaches all students to write with both the right and the left?
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We all usually write with one hand: right or left, in the case of left-handed people. There is also a very small percentage of ambidextrous people, that is, able to use both hands to write. But would you have ever imagined that in India there is even a school that teaches all students to write with both the right and the left?
A small school in rural India has attracted some attention for a curious fact: all 300 students are ambidextrous. Worldwide, the percentage of people able to write with both hands is around 1% but in this school we are even talking about 100%! This is obviously not causal: the ambitious founder of the Veena Vandini School, in Madhya Pradesh, is trying to change this trend by teaching all his students to be ambidextrous prefects.
The school, which is made up of grades 1 to 8, was founded in 1999 by a former soldier, VP Sharma. According to the man's words, the idea came like this:
“I was traveling in a bus when I read in a magazine that President Rajendra Prasad (first Indian president in office from 1950 to 1962 ed) wrote with both hands, which prompted me to try. When I launched the school in my hometown, I tried to train students in this practice. We started training the students in class 1, and by the time we reached class 3, the boys were already able to use both hands. Students of class 7 and 8 can write with speed and precision as well as writing two things at the same time "
To achieve this in each 45-minute lesson, 15 minutes are devoted to practicing writing so that each student can train themselves to develop the ability to write with both hands. Among other things, the children also learn different languages including Urdu (Indo-Iranian language which is based on an alphabet with reading from right to left).
The founder of this original school believes that the ability to know how to write with both hands is particularly useful to help students learn more languages making them practice writing the same words in different languages at the same time. Some studies actually disprove Sharma's beliefs as it has been found that being ambidextrous can actually damage cognitive development.
In particular, an American research has revealed that ambidextrous children perform worse on tests than right- or left-handed ones. A number of skills are most at risk: in particular math, memory and logical reasoning. On the other hand, a study in Northern Finland showed that ambidextrous children are more at risk of developing attention deficit, language problems and poor school performance.
So is the game worth the candle?
Photo: yableftonline
