I was just reading an article in the New York Times by Rik Smits on left-handedness.  Boy, he sure hit the proverbial nail on the head.  I am living proof of that.  I knew exactly what he was talking about since my life spans the times when being left-handed was condemned and is now supposedly celebrated.  Or, at least, tolerated.  You see, I am a southpaw; I am as “southern” a southpaw there is.  I’m so left-handed I joking say that if I must have a stroke, I hope it occurs in my “left brain” so it only effects my right side.  I won’t miss it.  Then, last year when the orthepedic surgeon said I had a small tear in my left shoulder’s rotator cuff  (don’t swing on the jungle gym at 70 with your grandmunchkin), I gladly offered up my right shoulder for surgery as a surrogate.

Seriously, when I was in first grade at New York’s P.S. 160 in 1946, I was deemed a menace, possessed by Satan himself (my Susie says I do have a little devil in me).  Literally!!!  It seems hard to believe, but Mrs. Satchel, a diminutive, not very nice person who always had a scowl on her face and in her heart (if she had a heart), who looked like she had just stepped out from an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus, took it upon herself to take the lead in the fight against the dark force that was controlling me.   With the passion of a not-to-be-deterred fanatic on a mission, for her there was no such thing as going too far.  She saw only weakness and danger in my strong side.  For her, nothing good was associated with the left side.  To put the proverbial fear of God in both me and the other students, especially during penmanship, she would point her bony finger at me, with fire in her eyes and threat in her voice, angrily saying to the other students, “Do you want to be evil like Schmier?”  She used that word, “evil,” over and over and over again against me.  I was only seven years old!  It was unmerciful persecution.

I vividly still remember the times she would rap my knuckles or the palm of my left hand with the heavy whacks of a wooden ruler in her struggle, in her words, “to drive out the demons.”  When I wouldn’t compromise and write with my left hand as if it was contorted by a twisting muscular constriction that feigned being right-handed, she got angrier, more determined, and hit me harder.  Many was the time I would come home hiding my swollen, bloodied left hand in my pant or coat pocket, run to the bathroom to pour cold water over it and wash the blood from my knuckles or palm, and then keep it from view, hoping my  mother or especially my father wouldn’t notice.  It was sheer brutality.

One day, my older brother saw my bloodied knuckles and asked if I had been in a fight.  I made the mistake of telling him about Mrs. Satchel. He and I weren’t close.  He ratted me out, telling my father that I had told him that I had gotten into a street brawl.  Showing dad my bloodied knuckles, in my defense, and since he was astute enough to notice I didn’t have any other cuts or welts on either my right hand or face, I had to tell him about Mrs. Satchel.  Now, my father was a stern, demanding man.  He was controlling and authoritarian, but in his way he was extraordinarily loving.  He never laid a finger on me or my siblings, and scorned any type of corporal punishment.  His eyes, stentorian voice, and force of personality were enough to cower anyone.  The next day, against my silent wishes, dad went to school with me.  He and Mrs Satchel had a talk.  I watched and listened.  It must have made a heck of an impression on my young mind and soul because I vividly remember that meeting almost word-for-word as if it happened only a few minutes ago.

To sum it up, Mrs. Satchel wouldn’t back down. To this very day, I can see her now telling my father why she walloped me so hard that she had drawn blood–on more than one occasion.  I saw my father’s eyes when he heard that this one incident wasn’t an anomaly.  She didn’t notice his lips tightening and went on.  She explained that I had a disease that demanded curing; I was possessed by a demon who required an exorcism; I was a backward child; I was plagued with mental, physical, and psychological abnormalities; I needed special treatment.  She told my father that I didn’t belong in a regular class; I was rebelliousness; I was stubborn; I was a non-conformist; I was clumsy; I was goofy; I was messy; I was malicious; I was unorthodox; I was a deviant; I was sinister; I was a challenge to authority.  And, I had to be forced into line.  About the only thing she left out was the cliche that hurting me hurt her more.  No apologies.  No second thoughts.  It was medieval.

Now, Mrs. Satchel, who had made me into the embodiment of all those negatives associated with being left handed, was herself the embodiment of all the biases against left handers.  I am sure that if she were alive today, she’d say she had cared.  I would say that she was selfishly careless with her uncaring type of caring, loveless with her type of loving, disrespectful with her type of respect, that she had a passion that lacked both empathy and compassion, and that she was arrogant and self-righteous.  She could not understand my father’s firm disagreement and order not to touch me again.  After all, she was being merciful; she was being responsible; she was being a healer; she was being helpful; she was ridding me of my sinister ways; she was fighting to change my “negative character.”  God, to this day, some 65 years later, I remember the exact words she used in her defense:  “We all should pray for him and fight for his soul by driving out his evil.”  To which my father firmly replied, “He’s not the evil one in this room.”   I think it finally sunk in that dad was a force with which to be reckoned.

After that conversation, the ruler never came down on my left hand again, but it had left its scaring mark,  Nevertheless, the verbal assaults or what she called “godly discipline” continued.   I won’t tell you about the number of times Mrs. Satchel accused me of cheating on classroom assignments and tests.  I must admit that it did seem that I was looking at other students’ work because I had to turn my body awkwardly and uncomfortably, and even painfully, to write on those damnable right-handed desks.  She would yell at me for all to hear to “give in,” to “stop trying to be different,” “be normal,” and to write with the “‘right'” “godly” hand like “every other person.”   I was the odd kid out.  Because of her, I was mercilessly taunted on the playground and in the lunchroom.  She even did it, but, as Paul Harvey would have said, that’s the rest of the story.  I do remember that often, if wasn’t for my father, sometimes I wished she would hit me with the ruler rather than assault me with those words.   It was barbarism.

Then, two decades later, came the social, cultural, and political revolutions of the ’60s that fought for women, homosexuals, African-American, and student rights.  A little known off-shoot of those battles was the quasi-successful fight for lefty rights.  I was free–kinda. Today, I am seen in a bit more kinder light, but I am still a battle ground.  You should read some of the supposed “scientific left-handed facts” about me.  Google them.  Compared to right handers, I am angrier, a better leader, more embarrassed, more prone to illness, more prone to commit a crime, more of a boozer, more artistic,  more fearful, better at sports, will have a shorter lifespan, more fearful,  more imaginative, sloppier (Susie would vigorously agree with this one), shyer, and more creative.  And, it goes on.

The subtle prejudices are still there.  It’s still an adventure to find left-handed tools; it’s still tough to use a right-handed scissors or cutting knife; a left-handed classroom desk still is a rarity; and, I still have to contort my body to sign a fixed, right-facing credit card swipe terminal at a check-out counter.

When I heard at a parent-teacher evening, my left-handed son’s second grade teacher tell me that we should “convince” him of the “wrongness” in using his left hand and get him to use his “‘right’ hand,” that moment in the mid-1970s took me back to those days in the dark ages of the mid-1940s.  True, she didn’t invoke Divine sanction of her attitude.  But, as I firmly told her to leave him alone and to deal with his left-handedness, and don’t either pressure him or punish him, I sighed silently to myself, “At least they’re no longer using a ruler.”

What’s the point of this story?  I have never forgotten Mrs. Satchel.  She is my warning memory of the consequences of being toxic rather therapeutic, and as Abraham Mazlow might say, she was as toxic as they come.   She is my constant reminder that, as Haim Ginott wrote:

I am the decisive element in the classroom.
It is my personal approach that creates the climate.
It is my daily mood that makes the weather.
As a teacher I possess tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous.
I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration.
I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal.

So, I am always on high alert to what I say and do, to how I feel; to my attitude; to my body language and vocal tones; to my facial expression; to keeping sharp my senses of mindfulness, otherness, awareness, and alertness; to seeing more than mere looking and to listening more than merely hearing; to practicing my RO6; to unconditionally loving, believing in, and having hope for in each and every student; and, to being the guy who is there–unconditionally–to help each student help her/himself become the person each is capable of becoming.

Louis