DHS Students "Left" Behind
NEIRAD enilno edition
Picture this: You’re rushing through the halls, trying to get to class early in order to cram in some last minute studying before your huge science test next period. The teacher passes out the exam and you’re ready to get started but suddenly you encounter a problem. There is absolutely nowhere to put your arm. You aren’t alone. Ten percent of the Darien High School population deals with this problem every day. Why? Because they are left-handed.
“It’s super frustrating [to deal with the science desks],” says senior Hannah Carmody. “We deserve extra time on tests or left handed desks.” She’s not the only one who finds the desks annoying to deal with. “I don’t like the fact that we have to hover over our papers as we write. It also makes taking notes very tedious and oftentimes, I have to copy someone else’s because I cannot get them down fast enough,” says junior Annie Archibald.
So what is the solution to this problem? “Having leftie desks in science classrooms wouldn’t be a bad idea,” says junior Cameron Magida. Great idea, however that could be quite costly. A different idea would be placing regular classroom desks at the end of each row in those particular classrooms.
The desks aren’t the only challenges lefties face. Some obvious ones include getting one’s hand covered in lead or ink as your hand trails over your notes and dealing with binder rings which makes taking notes that much more difficult. “Also when you sit next to someone who is a righty, you're constantly getting in each other’s way,” junior Sarah Colon adds.
One unique challenge for junior Annie Archibald is her ceramics class. “Being a leftie makes ceramics class slightly more difficult for me because my teachers all throw right handed and it takes me longer to figure out the techniques from a left handed standpoint,” she says. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing to be a leftie. “Personally I love being a leftie. We always have a story to tell. It's like a club. Us lefties have to stick together,” says junior Taylor Cockerill.
Other lefties agree. “Being a leftie means you are among the elite,” says Magida. Usually lefties are thought of as being more creative than right handed people, especially in the areas of art and music.
“Being a leftie is much better than being a righty. We definitely have more fun!” adds Carmondy. Being a left- handed student here at DHS can have its setbacks as well as its privileges. So next time all of you righties complain about taking notes, think of that ten percent of the school that has to deal with these problems on a daily basis.
