She went around the class handing them out and then got to me and said:

I put my hand up.  Straight up.  Not my usual tentative approach, a fallback from a childhood of sexual abuse, but straight up, forcefully, and I made a statement.  I said something along the lines of: “Thank you and I would like a fountain pen please.”

Maybe it was because I knew I wasn’t one of the left-handed people who wrote sideways, and therefore I already knew I could do it, or maybe it was just because in that moment I couldn’t cope with another shaming, public or otherwise.  Regardless, I put my hand up, and I spoke out and spoke up for myself which was a rare feat for me back then.

She didn’t argue but came back with the brown basket which held the plastic green and metal writing implements and handed me one.

And so the lesson began.  We were shown how to insert the cartridge.  How to use the refill pump when using an ink well, and how to angle the nib so we didn’t just rip a hole in the page.

We all practiced.  A few weeks later gold stars were handed out to those with the neatest ink pen writing.  I got a gold star.

Somewhere deep in my psyche, decades before stumbling across and into personal development, this lesson served me well.  It reminded me I shouldn’t allow someone else to define my destiny and what I am capable of based on their limited perceptions of me and my capabilities.

It taught me I had the resilience to soldier on in the face of a room full of classmates watching me and waiting for me to make a left-handed mess and fail.

To this day in situations where we’re writing rather than typing people are shocked and surprised when they realise I’m left-handed because I write like the majority of the population; wrist straight, piece of paper straight and in one place and no awkward looking angles.

That’s the way I taught myself to write as I observed everyone around me and it was further enhanced on that fateful day where Mrs Turner denied me the ink pen.

And don’t get it twisted.  I liked Mrs Turner, so this wasn’t an animosity filled event or experience and I don’t think for one moment she did it out of any kind of spite or malice.  It was just to save me the hand dragging mess that often befalls us of the left-handed persuasion.

If I were going to choose a word for that life lesson it would be resilience.

If I were going to choose an attitude and state of mind, it would be: “I’ll show you!”

Who have been your greatest teachers and what were your biggest life lessons?