RIGHT-HAND DESK CHAIRS FOR LEFT-HANDED STUDENTS: A SERIOUS HEALTH ISSUE

A petition to REQUIRE all schools in the Philippines to provide left-handed armchairs to left-handed students

A regular basic education student in the Philippines usually spend 7 to 8 hours at school. Around 80% to 90% of that time is spent sitting on desk chairs to write lessons. This means the students sits on the chair for  120 hours a month or 1,200 hours a year.

Now, imagine the student is left-handed and has to contort her whole body to write using a right-hand desk chair. She cringes her neck, bends her back and twists her arm to write – for 1,200 hours a year.

Imagine a left-handed student in a right-hand-oriented school where he will spend six years or more of his young life – six years when his body is at a crucial stage of development.

It cannot be clearer than this: right-hand chairs pose a serious health risk to left-handed students.

And schools that give a right-hand desk chair to a left-handed student -- either mindlessly or out of neglect – is responsible for exposing the students to this risk.     

Is it a mere case of not understanding "lefties" that this issue is ignored?

According to the Handedness Research Institute (www.handedness.org "left-handers have to put in great effort even for simple tasks of life contrary to their natural tendencies and face problems in the use of tools for routine chores."

Needless to say, being left-handed in a right-hand world is tough. But a lot tougher, especially for young people, is when people do not recognize your unique needs.

Handedness Research Institute cites examples of everyday problems lefties face: "Some of the evident challenges for left-handed individuals include school desks that are unworkable, vegetable peelers that are of no use, pens that spread ink and make writing unreadable."

The institute also made a very clear-- and worrying--description of how right-hand arm chair affects the health of a left-handed student:

"A right-biased table arm desk does not offer left-handed students the same arm support that right-handed students enjoy. Depending upon the width of the half desk, and the way the student holds the pencil, left-handers are susceptible to back, neck, and shoulder pain. A left-hander who writes with an inverted or "hooked" (bent wrist) style at a narrow desk must twist around in a contorted posture that is awkward and uncomfortable."

A medical research also revealed that writing in this position for long periods of time cause chronic neck and back pain and lifetime injury.

 

I am starting this petition to help thousands, or maybe millions, of left-handed students who, at this very moment, may be struggling to use their right-hand arm chairs and are quietly enduring their pain.

I am starting this petition now because, this morning, my left-handed daughter complained of back and shoulder pain, saying that it could be because she was having difficulty writing on her right-hand arm chair.

I am starting this petition not just because I have two left-handed children and personally know many other young children who are left-handed. This petition is not just for them. This is for the rest of less empowered, less fortunate left-handed children who are everyday exposed to this health risk.

Schools administrators should be required to:

1. Conduct an inventory of all left-handed students enrolled in the school at the beginning of the school year and before the first day of class;

2. Based on the inventory, procure left-handed arm chairs and make sure these are issued to the left-handed students during the first day of class;

3. Orient teachers and school personnel about the special needs of left-handed students

4. Devise support mechanisms (psychological, physical, clinical) for left-handed students