Confession

Working in schools for most of the last year has made me very aware of what we think of as ‘smart’, as in booksmart, and the things that is assumed go with it: good behaviour, roughly equal talents across the board, ability to spell, social skills. But, a confession. I always did well at school, and was placed in top sets, yet I did (and still do) have difficulties with things that would have made a nonsense of early years National Curriculum Targets*, and still befuddle people I meet today.

I cannot tell my left from my right. And please, don’t tell me that my left hand makes an L-shape. It doesn’t help. It’s a bit like telling people who don’t read mandarin characters that they are pictograms: yeah, I can see how the character for ren (people) looks sort of like a human, but please tell me how that works with bei, the character for north.

It’s not that I can’t remember which is left and right, I just don’t understand the concept at all. How can left and right swop places when you turn around? How can your right and left be different if you’re standing opposite me? I just don’t get it.

People tend to react disbelievingly, as if it’s against the laws of the universe that an intelligent person can’t understand something so (allegedly) simple. I hate having to give directions to people I don’t know very well, especially when in a car, as despite my warning, people inevitably get frustrated. A few weeks ago I even had someone who was giving a left screaming at me. Strangely enough, screaming does not magically make me realise my left from my right.

I always thought that I was alone in this, until I learnt to drive two years ago. One reason that I didn’t pass my driving test until I was 25 was that my previous instructors had just become angry when they’d said right and I’d gone left, meaning that I went through each lesson in a perpetual state of nervous tension. And, being a teenager, I’d just taken it instead of telling themselves where to go.

My last driving instructor was the first person to tell me that, actually, there are a lot of adults who can’t tell their right from their left but that people are too embarrassed by not being able to do such a ‘simple’ thing that they don’t tell anybody. Now, I’m much more confident about telling people that, actually, when they say ‘go left’ there’s a reasonable chance that I’ll go the other way, and that if people scream at me when I’m doing my best then it’s their problem, not mine.

Incidentally, I’m a fantastic map reader and have an excellent sense of direction, and despite going the wrong way on my driving test, I still passed.

Other ‘dumb’ moments:

· I can’t remember not being able to read, but I can remember not knowing the order of the alphabet until well into primary school. I mean, why is c after b? Why?

· I also remember my dance teacher being horrified that at seven years old I couldn’t tie my own shoelaces. I remember a lot of practice. Knots still aren’t my thing. I still prefer slip on or buckle shoes.

· I was really good at maths in primary school, but I couldn’t tell the time using a regular clock. When I was 8, I persuaded my teacher to let me skip the time telling section in maths, telling her I already knew how to do because I was too embarrassed to admit that I didn’t understand it. I didn’t buy an non-digital watch until I was WELL into my twenties.

Anyone else out there have any similar confessions?

* For non-Brits, these are government educational targets that say each child should be able to do such-and-such by a certain age. I would’ve been judged both advanced and remedial at the same time!