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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to not want my left-handed child to have to use a fountain pen ...

128 replies

Nickoka · 17/09/2011 18:50

Child is in year 5. The school previously tried to get year 6s to use fountain pens but this year has extended policy to year 5.

My DD writes slowly and with 'hook hand' sometimes, so I bought her the Stabilo left handed rollerball pen in the holidays. The teacher however has issued (right handed) fountain pens and wants the kids to use them for everything but maths. I had a meeting with teacher. He was nice and it was a reasonable discussion. Teacher's argument was they wanted all children to be the same. However I think fountain pens are a rubbish idea in the 21st century for left handed children, just causing smudging and frustration. I don't want to buy a left-handed one as suggested by the teacher. Am I just being stubborn or am I right to fight this? Views from lefties particularly sought!

OP posts:

CailinDana · 17/09/2011 23:23

I'm a teacher and a leftie and I just can't understand the policy schools have of giving out particular pens that the kids absolutely have to write with. IME different people prefer different pens and making everyone write with one kind of pen really doesn't make sense. In the last school I taught at they had the "handwriting" pens which IMO are absolutely awful. They soak the paper with ink and run out really quickly. I don't see why they don't just use ordinary biros - they're the main pen every adult uses every day of their lives.

BTW I could never get on a with a fountain pen. I absolutely love them and wish I could use one all the time but I press far too hard on the nib and damage it. I'm another leftie who used to get told off at school for angling the paper in order to be able to write, but I was a stubborn fecker and when the teacher made me straighten the page I called her down at least ten times during the lesson to "help" me with writing with a straight page. I broke her pretty fast

tethersend · 17/09/2011 23:31

Go out and buy him the biggest, fattest permanent marker you can find and send him in with that.

SexualHarrassmentPandaPop · 18/09/2011 00:27

YANBU. For a start I would be miffed that left handed kids parents have to buy their kids a pen when the others got given them.
Also I would have thought fountain pens would be a nightmare for schools - work will be more smudged (particularly a prob if your hand drags over the writing in ink that takes forever to dry), they leak and kids flick ink at each other. We were't allowed to use fountain pens in school. There are better pens to use these days. I think you should go one better and send your child in with a feather and some ink

LindyHemming · 18/09/2011 07:46

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

AngelsOnHigh · 18/09/2011 07:50

God! I didn't think they even made fountain pens anymore

cumbria81 · 18/09/2011 07:51

Presumably Arabic kids write in ink and it isn't a problem for them. And most of them will be right handed.

TeddyBare · 18/09/2011 08:00

I don't understand why the teacher wants all of the dc to use the same pen. In the grand scheme of things, does it matter?! It just seems like a crazy arbitrary rule which is making your dd's life unnecessarily difficult. Don't teachers have better things to do than worry about making sure everyone is using the same pen? YANBU OP.

exoticfruits · 18/09/2011 08:05

I am left handed, I don't normally write with a fountain pen-being very lazy and also type a lot. However my writing is much improved with one.
There is no reason why a left hander can't cope with one.
They get short shrift from me when they give being left handed as an excuse-I say 'so am I -all the best people are!'

They are so used to right handers telling them they are awkward that they believe it.
Excellent materials from left handers shop

exoticfruits · 18/09/2011 08:07

You are basically saying that no left hander can do calligraphy-utter rubbish.

MaryBS · 18/09/2011 08:19

I'm another leftie that loves using her fountain pen. I don't write hook handed, and never have, which might make a difference. Nor do I smudge my work.

MaryBS · 18/09/2011 08:20

And I can do Calligraphy (I used to have a left handed oblique nib for that)

unpa1dcar3r · 18/09/2011 08:25

LH fountain pens are ok BUT a bloody pain to write with as you smudge all your words.
I'm a leftie n gave up on LH fountain pens yrs ago.
Teachers being stupid. What bloody difference does it make as long as u can read her writing, surely that's more important.

BoffinMum · 18/09/2011 08:26

Lots of lefties in this family. They love fountain pens as it's easier to a) write neatly, and b) deal with mistakes via an ink eradicator. To avoid smudging you just turn the book around a bit. The shop Anything Left Handed has great supplies, very cheap.

seeker · 18/09/2011 08:27

Nobody's saying that left handers can't do calligraphy. Of course they can. But we're not talking about that. We're talking aout something which makes life a little bit harder for a year 5 child. Completely unnecessarily.

exoticfruits · 18/09/2011 08:37

It doesn't make life harder for a left hander. I always had to write with a fountain pen at school and I didn't discover pens for left handers until I was well over 20yrs. Calligraphers can be just as successful if they use their left hand. Fountain pens are so much nicer than any other sort.
I find that right handers think that left handers are awkward and trot it out as an excuse. I am generally they first person they have come across to say 'rubbish'.

exoticfruits · 18/09/2011 08:39

You can get things very cheaply from the left handers shop. You shouldn't make using the left hand into a disability with special dispensations.
I had a holiday job once that I nearly didn't get because of prejudice about left handers-apparently they are unable to write neatly!! I had to do some writing first-it wasn't asked of right handers!

fastweb · 18/09/2011 08:49

" I am generally they first person they have come across to say 'rubbish'."

Which points to you being an exception, rather than the rule being that lefties are a bunch of excuse making whingyknickers.

I would have loved to have been free of the brerating, the confidence sucking statements about my character and the general cat's bum faces aboit my smudged work.

But that didn't happen until I left boarding school and went to the comp where kids were allowed to use "terribly common" biros, and I managed to work out which brands were dry enough to withstand my hand drag.

I still have issues with chalk and whiteboard markers if not constantly concentrating on holding the chalk/pen in an unnatural (for me) position.

Which is irritating given that most of the schools have an interactive whiteboard swathed in plastic and locked away in a store cupboard that they won't let anybody use.

Even I couldn't smudge digital ink.

CailinDana · 18/09/2011 09:11

Exotic, you assuming just that everyone is like you and easily able to use a fountain is just as bad as right handed people assuming all lefties are clumsy. Many people have said here they find it difficult to use them, are you just dismissing what they say because you're different? Like I said in my post I love fountain pens and have tried using them many times but I just can't get on with them at all. Left handed people tend to use a lot of unusual strategies to get around being taught how to write by someone who does everything the opposite way to them. That often makes them less able to use right handed implements and that's not their fault.

Longtime · 18/09/2011 09:14

I'll ask my dsis-in-law about this as using a fountain pen in school is the normal here in Belgium. Euphemia, they all use erasable ink in their fountain pens. Mistakes are erased with one end of an "effaceur" (www.e-consommables.fr/correction/effaceurs-reecriveurs/reynolds-fbs-761390.html) and written over with the other.

Longtime · 18/09/2011 09:15

www.e-consommables.fr/correction/effaceurs-reecriveurs/reynolds-fbs-761390.html Not sure this Mac likes the "convert links automatically" box.

Anyway, I see natation has already posted about Belgium. She's right in saying that the children's handwriting is generally very nice. My mum often comments on how much nicer my dd's handwriting is than my dniece and dnephew's.

exoticfruits · 18/09/2011 09:21

Right handers had just as much trouble with fountain pens to start with. I am so old that in junior school we had dip pens and inkwells-the right handed boy next to me looked as if a demented spider had crossed his page!
It is more difficult but life is in general-there are far more irritating things in a left hander's life than fountain pens.
I found writing on an interactive while board hell (much as I love them), I simply couldn't stand in the position that I wanted-the shadow falls in the wrong place.
When I was 5 yrs old I started writing on the right side of the page going to the left with words and letters back to front.That is the way I would like to do it in an ideal world!

Waspie · 18/09/2011 09:22

YANBU.

I'm a leftie and cannot use a fountain pen (either left or right handed) or a rollerball pen. I even smudge biro despite turning the page 90 degrees to try and avoid smudging. Thank goodness for typing

Eventually I was allowed to use a pencil (after the full range of fountain pens and their alternatives was exhausted) until the whole class moved to a biro.

As another poster said earlier the main problem at school was when sitting next to a right handed person as you just constantly bump elbows. Even at a restaurant if we're all a bit packed in I will try and sit on the end to avoid bumping others with my reverse cutlery. Lefties get adept with bumping avoidance mechanisms.

The school must have had this issue before. What have they done for other lefties?

exoticfruits · 18/09/2011 09:23

sorry-whiteboard.

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 18/09/2011 09:23

I'm left-handed, I do what Empusa does, turn the paper 90 degrees.

OP... do you really think this is a worthwhile battle? You're marking your child out as 'different', I would have been very upset if my mum had done this. A left-handed child naturally learns to be more ambidextrous because they have to adapt to a right-handed world... I think this is actually a terrific bonus and if my children were left-handed, I wouldn't want them to use bespoke left-handed 'things'.

exoticfruits · 18/09/2011 09:24

Schools make sure that a left hander is sitting where they are not bumping into a right hander.

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