So I recently found an interesting article on school desks entitled What’s Wrong with This Desk from an organization called the Handedness Research Institute (HRI). It’s kind of long, so I’ll break it down for you into a quick synopsis - right-handed school desks are bad because they discriminate against lefthanders. The author explains that lefties can hurt themselves contorting into uncomfortable positions, so schools should buy regular school desks that aren’t oriented either way.

My favorite part of the article is the picture of the right-handed school desk and the words “Is this desk... an instrument of torture?” Once you see that, you kind of get an idea about the author’s agenda. While I don’t doubt that in many ways, it’s a right-hander’s world, I’d like to see more evidence of how you can potentially compare the “forced” imposition of righty school desks to human rights violations and “Institutionalized Discrimination.” As far as I can see, the author doesn’t support his/her thesis with much more than a few isolated comments submitted to his/her website from disgruntled lefties mixed in with some one-sided personal commentary.

Anyway, I’m not saying I totally disagree with the article. But I do think the author could try to learn more about the benefits of right-handed school desks, especially for right-handed students, just to make the argument seem a little more balanced. Theories and isolated comments are fine, but I don’t think they’re enough to warrant parents confronting school administrators and demanding that they purchase non-discriminatory school desks. It is a potentially interesting question though, so hopefully someone can look at the effects of using left- or right-handed school desks and come to a conclusion about potential hazards and benefits. Feel free to leave a comment if you have any opinions on this issue.