Should ambidexterity be taught in schools?

string555

string555

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    It seems everyone is taught to just use one hand for writing/drawing. If you use the left hand for most of that, you exercise the creative half of your brain. On the other hand, you exercise the analytical part of your brain. Instead of teaching kids to stick to one side, why not teach them to change it up on a regular basis, so they develop both sides of the brain? It would also aid them in whatever other skills they pick up that uses their hands.

    On a side note, if you grew up using only one hand to write/draw, it's not too late to pick it up now. It feels really awkward at first, but if you stick to it and get past that part, it feels better. Of course you might have to deal with people in your life telling you you're not _____-handed, but just ignore them and keep learning. It pays off. :D
     
    Nah, too much effort. World still going round and round with 99.9% of people using just one hand. Also, there are no discrete creative or analytical "halves" of brains. Some functions tend to be dominant in one hemisphere vs. the other, but many functions involve both halves of the brain and the degree and even the directionality of the split depends on the individual (one person might have a strong emphasis in their left brain for language, and another person a subtle dominance in their right). Everyone develops this in their own individual way whether they force themselves to do it or not so I say just let that happen without trying too hard. The way you use your brains is as individual as your personality.
     
    Probably not, it just kind of overcomplicates things too early on. I think the last thing a teacher needs to worry about is what hand a person is writing with
     
    I dont think its really worth the trouble... its hard enough to get kids to write legibly with their dominant hand. And I dont think kids will benefit greatly either. Their are other ways to stimulate the brain.
     
    BadSheep said:
    I dont think its really worth the trouble... its hard enough to get kids to write legibly with their dominant hand. And I dont think kids will benefit greatly either. Their are other ways to stimulate the brain.
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    Completely agree. Right now I'm studying to become a teacher and I can't see any way it would help kids to teach ambidexterity. Some kids would pick up on it, but most would become confused and possibly even lose some writing skills with their normal writing hand if they keep trying to switch.
     
    You can actually teach people to be ambidextrous?
     
    Nah said:
    You can actually teach people to be ambidextrous?
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    Not really. You can make them to use their other hand but there's not guarantee they'll ever pick up on it. Some would, but most would get confused. That's why its just better not to teach it. It's a pretty pointless skill to have IMO.
     
    Nah said:
    You can actually teach people to be ambidextrous?
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    At my age, I've been slowly teaching myself. Kids learn much quicker, they absorb knowledge like sponges, so I would strongly bet that it's possible to teach them early on. The only thing holding them back is other people's doubt, which only sets them back.
     
    string555 said:
    The only thing holding them back is other people's doubt, which only sets them back.
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    It could also be that the benefits of ambidexterity are quite marginal for the amount of effort you need to put in. In the vast majority of instances it isn't taught not because it's not achievable (which the above posters tell me is a valid argument on its own) but because it's not that useful of a skill to begin with.

    Regarding its correlation to brain usage, Google managed to unearth a paper by one Michael Corballis on SciAm which apparently stated that ambidexterity would be neurally detrimental; even naturally ambidextrous people exhibited a slight tendency to perform worse academically and is more prone to developmental disorders like ADHD. Can't really be bothered to get into the nitty-gritty, but from what I can gather the reason why is because evolution knows its muk and made us dextral for a reason, so maybe tampering with the design without concrete knowledge of what it entails is not necessarily a good idea.

    So on top of bringing no concrete benefit other than being a cool trick, ambidexterity might even be harmful for development. Yikes.
     
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    I've been trying to become ambidextrous but it's really on and off and I haven't been making much progress. Do I think it should be taught in schools? No. It seems like something you don't really need, and if you do want it you can teach it to yourself.
     
    I have an interesting update to this thread I though you guys would be interested in. I think I mentioned in a previous post that I am in school studying to become a teacher. As part of my studies this year, I will be spending a month as a teaching assistant in a school close to my university. Yesterday I received the curriculum and found out that I will be a T.A. in a Senior Kindergarten (ages 5/6) class.

    The curriculum lists of of the topics that will be covered during the year, and one of the topics in the first month (when I will be there) is titled: Facilitating Dexterity in both the Dominant and Non-Dominant Hands. From what I gather, they will be trying to teach the kids how to write with their non-dominant hand. I think this is really interesting as I've never heard of teaching ambidexterity in schools and don't particularly think it's a good idea.

    I will let you guys know how it goes during the first month of classes. It's going to be pretty interesting to see if the kids react the way some people on here think they will. I personally think most of them won't be able to develop any proficiency in their non-dominant hand. I guess we'll wait and see.
     
    It definitely shouldn't be taught in schools. If you find it worthwhile, then go for it. There is no advantage to being ambidextrous, other than if you break your dominant hand, you can still write for long periods at a time. And in a world that is moving closer to technological learning at younger and younger ages, this may soon too become irrelevant. The problem with your argument about the brain is that relies on pop psychology. While the hemispheres of the brain may be dominant in certain specific functions, on a hemispheric level they are not specialized. Both the left and right brain contribute heavily to both analytic and creative thought and behavior, and the loss of one hemisphere does not preclude you from being able to reason logically or think creatively. Consider Dr. Ben Carson's successful hemispherectomy.

    Now, could using both hands impact your brain? Probably. Some postulate that it could cause brain lateralization, which essentially reduces the degree of dominance the hemispheres have in assisting with certain tasks. But this has been linked to learning and attention disorders. While learning to be ambidextrous can't be said to have caused this uptick in disorders based on correlation alone, there is nothing that suggests there is any benefit to being ambidextrous that would compensate for this potential risk.
     
    No. I don't even think lots would be able to pick on and they'd fail the task so I see it pointless to teach them. You either got it or you don't.
    I can somewhat do this for most things, not sure how I can but I just can. Not as well as my dominant but I can still use my least dominant hand if I had to.. Then again I've broken my dominant hand 3 times. So I had to pick up on it I guess.
     
    Leafsfan said:
    I have an interesting update to this thread I though you guys would be interested in. I think I mentioned in a previous post that I am in school studying to become a teacher. As part of my studies this year, I will be spending a month as a teaching assistant in a school close to my university. Yesterday I received the curriculum and found out that I will be a T.A. in a Senior Kindergarten (ages 5/6) class.

    The curriculum lists of of the topics that will be covered during the year, and one of the topics in the first month (when I will be there) is titled: Facilitating Dexterity in both the Dominant and Non-Dominant Hands. From what I gather, they will be trying to teach the kids how to write with their non-dominant hand. I think this is really interesting as I've never heard of teaching ambidexterity in schools and don't particularly think it's a good idea.

    I will let you guys know how it goes during the first month of classes. It's going to be pretty interesting to see if the kids react the way some people on here think they will. I personally think most of them won't be able to develop any proficiency in their non-dominant hand. I guess we'll wait and see.
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    That's awesome, but on another note:

    I am going to keep trying to learn this like I've been trying to for 2 years with noticeable improvement. Those that disregard this can just move on. Basically, I'm saying that this thread should be left to die. I tried to give my 2 cents but it went nowhere, so it's alright. :P
     
    So I have a final update to this and wasn't sure whether to post here or make a new thread, so i decided to update it here.

    The activity the kindergarteners did involved writing out every letter of the alphabet (on a guided sheet) with both hands. I then compared both sheets from each kindergartener, chose which one looked worse, and they wrote out the letters again on two guided sheets just with the hand that produced the worse looking letters, presumably their non-dominant hand). I kept both sheets for later reference. This was a short activity and we did it at the beginning of each day for the past week and a half, but without the guides on the sheets after day one.

    I kept the original two worse sheets and after doing the activity every morning, we finished it up on Friday. Yesterday I spent some time comparing the original two sheets with the final two sheets done on Friday and they were pretty interesting. Some kids letters remained as bad as they were the first day, but most kids's letters improved, some drastically, even looking better than the better looking letters (presumably the dominant hand) from the first day.

    All in all, I'm pretty surprised at how it turned out. I wasn't expecting there to be much improvement, if any, even though they all hand't really spent a lot of time writing before. I'm not sure what the teacher plans to do after this, if anything, but I think it's cool to see that ambidexterity, to some degree, can be taught to kindergarteners.
     
    Surely this would be something to teach yourself as you get older, our brain gives us a dominant hand in order to make things easier for us - to teach a child one thing one second and the another the other they would never learn anything. Nice idea but no chance it would work effectively and stick in most people.
     
    As for the actual question...why not? I don't see it being incredibly useful, but it wouldn't be a bad thing to learn. Not incredibly advantageous but nothing disadvantageous either. Meh
     
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