Here at Cape Coral High School, desks seem like common furniture to the everyday student. To be more specific, the kind of desk that is a seat and a desk, with an armrest on the right side. As a left-handed individual, I find this as an insult to everyone in the left-handed community.
In elementary school, we learned how to write with a pencil. I clearly remember my teacher forcing me to write with my right hand even though it felt more comfortable with my left. Examples like this show society’s disdain toward left-handers.
When we look at the desk situation, we see that a decent amount of these classrooms tend to be dominated with right-handed people. However, there are still some that write with their left hand. It would be more reasonable to help the lefties.
Our society has slightly improved on these weaknesses by incorporating desks that have no armrests, but this still doesn’t resolve the issue completely. It is noted that these “right” desks are located in the more important classes such as social studies.
In classes such as AP Human Geography and AP World History, the desks are more focused on the right handed people. This seems completely wrong, and implies that lefties aren’t important in AP classes.
It would make much more sense to incorporate leftie-friendly desks in all classes to make it fair for everyone. In a world where life isn’t fair, this isn’t a current priority. It should be a priority to make everyone feel like they are treated fairly, including in schools.
A first good step to making this true is changing the school desk policy. If you were to examine these desks, you’d find that there is a chair attached to a desk; the desk has a long arm that goes from the chair to the desk, used for putting the arm on. This arm is ONLY on the right side, proving it was made for righties.
If you were to put a leftie in this seat, it would make them extremely uncomfortable. Their left arm would rub on the desk constantly, resulting in excruciating amounts of pain. This situation gives lefties a huge disadvantage when it comes to taking notes and writing essays.
Writing takes up a large portion of the workload of AP and IB classes. Considering ten percent of the population is left handed, that means on average, there is a leftie in a group of ten. When we look at a normal class, it is roughly around 30 to 40 students, three to four of the students are lefties.
Even though the proportion makes it seem like there are way more righties than lefties, it would still be beneficial for both if the right-handed desks was removed. The best way to go would be a “no-arm” design.
This is exemplified in more classrooms around the nation and is honestly the better option. When was the last time you saw someone prefer the right-handed desks over the classic square desks. It brings comfort to both righties and lefties.
With the right-handed desk, righties aren’t really able to rest their heads on their other arm. With the no-arm design, it gives the opportunity for both righties and lefties to be able to find comfort in writing.
A way to expand on this idea is to add padding on the edges of the desk so the arm can avoid getting scraped across and getting hurt.
These no-arm desks even benefit schools. These square desks take up less space compared to the right-handed desk. The chairs can be stacked and the desks can be stored easier than the rightie desk; it just makes more sense.
It is only a matter of time before the lefties rise up against this discrimination. This retaliation should have taken place a long time ago.
