Red Falls Out of Favor As Teacher's Choice(red ink "stressful")

WASHINGTON - Of all the things that can make a person see red, school principal Gail Karwoski was not expecting parents to get huffy about, well, seeing red. At Daniels Farm Elementary School in Trumbull, Conn., Karwoski's teachers grade papers by giving examples of better answers for those students who make mistakes. But that approach meant the kids often found their work covered in red, the color that teachers long have used to grade work.

Parents objected. Red writing, they said, was "stressful." The principal said teachers were just giving constructive advice and the color of ink used to convey that message should not matter. But some parents could not let it go.

So the school put red on the blacklist. Blue and other colors are in.

"It's not an argument we want to have at this point because what we need is the parents' understanding," Karwoski said. "The color of the message should not be the issue."


In many other schools, it's black and white when it comes to red. The color has become so symbolic of negativity that some principals and teachers will not touch it.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=718&e=10&u=/ap/20050404/ap_on_re_us/no_more_red

:eyes:

I'm a teacher. I always use red. Know why? IT SHOWS UP!!!!!!!!!!!!

I had one parent ask why I use red and I said "it shows up the best. THere is no way a person can miss anything I"ve written on the paper when it's done in red." They seemed fine with that/ In the classroom, the kids always used red pens to do our in class correcting.

Big deal. With all the other issues in education, I can't believe this was even a news story.


The only time I didn't use red was when I had a kid with such a high level of ADHD. I used softer colors around this one because bright colors set him off big time. I had to cover the computer screens in the classroom, put a soft gel over the tv and use very dull colors for the bulletin boards to keep him calm.

our Government it should be okay for school papers.

:rofl:

at the college level.

we were told in teacher training that the students don't respond well to it, since they've been trained to see it as a judgment rather than constructive advice. Not sure if that's true, but I always graded as if it was true.

TA for Special Ed students. I use yellow to mark the errors.

and then use a bunch of different colors on the same paper for other things, so that each paper is marked in a variety of colors. For example, if a student keeps making the same error, I will mark it in a specific color, so he can see all the examples of it at a glance. If a student awkwardly repeats the same word or phrase, that gets circled in another color.

Sometimes, to counter my own boredom, I will start with a different base color, and then red will become one of the special colors for that paper.

But the real problem is that students just can't take criticism or correction. They expect to be praised and rewarded for anything they do, and are very put out if it is in any way suggested that they are not doing excellent work.

On my Teacher, Teacher website I have a couple of essays that deal with related issues:

"How Long Does It Take to Grade an Essay?"
http://www.teacherblue.homestead.com/gradingtime.html

and

"My GPA Is Ruined!"
http://www.teacherblue.homestead.com/ruined.html

Personally I think its insane. If everyone starts using purple (which bugs me, its my favorite color), then won't purple become the new red, so to speak? A generation from now, purple will carry the same negative connotation that red does today.

If I were a teacher, I'd keep grading in red. If the answers wrong, who cares what color you mark it wrong in. I don't think we should pamper these kids any more than we already do: ouchless band-aids, antiseptics that don't sting, etc. . . wimps.

Red - Which I will use to indicated incorrect anwsers.
Green - Which I will use to indicate incorrect answers and the fact that you are a complete and utter crybaby.

was parents who thought that their little 18-21-year-old angel should never have to suffer any disappointments.

What pathetic brats their children were.

It's from Time magizine ....here is the link to it...

If you could walk past the teachers' lounge and listen in, what sorts of stories would you hear? An Iowa high school counselor gets a call from a parent protesting the C her child received on an assignment. "The parent argued every point in the essay," recalls the counselor, who soon realized why the mother was so upset about the grade. "It became apparent that she'd written it."
A sixth-grade teacher in California tells a girl in her class that she needs to work on her reading at home, not just in school. "Her mom came in the next day," the teacher says, "and started yelling at me that I had emotionally upset her child."

A science teacher in Baltimore, Md., was offering lessons in anatomy when one of the boys in class declared, "There's one less rib in a man than in a woman." The teacher pulled out two skeletons--one male, the other female--and asked the student to count the ribs in each. "The next day," the teacher recalls, "the boy claimed he told his priest what happened and his priest said I was a heretic."

A teacher at a Tennessee elementary school slips on her kid gloves each morning as she contends with parents who insist, in writing, that their children are never to be reprimanded or even corrected. When she started teaching 31 years ago, she says, "I could make objective observations about my kids without parents getting offended. But now we handle parents a lot more delicately. We handle children a lot more delicately. They feel good about themselves for no reason. We've given them this cotton-candy sense of self with no basis in reality. We don't emphasize what's best for the greater good of society or even the classroom."

http://time-proxy.yaga.com/time/archive/preview/0%2C10987%2C1027485%2C00.html?promoid=AP

"Students Teachers Hate" on my Teacher, Teacher website:
http://www.teacherblue.homestead.com/suckups.html

It's about the sort of college student that tries to substitute being in your face for being in class or doing the work. Those same students are the first to call in their parents (and their lawyer) when they don't get the grade they demand.

Another essay on my site--"Grade Inflation: The 'Customer' Is Not Always Right!"--deals with the fact that nowadays parents and students believe that since they are "paying" the schools, they have a right to demand high grades.
http://www.teacherblue.homestead.com/customer.html

In fact, here is the article index for my site, for your browsing pleasure:
http://www.teacherblue.homestead.com/articleindex.html

The stories I could tell you!

:thumbsup:

I use green.

She uses purple.

Of course, if the student turns in an assignment in my color of choice, I use red.

(I also liked to use red ink because it shows up well.) Afterward the teacher asked me not to use a red ink pen again because he wanted to use a red ink pen himself while grading!

that was always "the teacher's color." A couple of teachers were so hard-assed, they told us if anyone turned in a paper written in red ink, they'd get an automatic F!

I love how some automatically take the antagonistic position! :eyes:

The principal in this school is right. Why argue about something so insignificant? What does it hurt to grade in another color if it makes the parents happy? If it's an issue of cost or availability, just ask the parents to send in pens of other colors. That's what the schools do here.

It's not the color of the ink itself that's the issue, but the idiot parents who don't want anyone to "traumatize" their precious little perfect angel. Where does it end--teachers not being allowed to correct a child's mistakes at all?

I'd hate to be the first work supervisor of a young person who has been pampered like that.

No one approves of nitpicking a child into utter insecurity, but the opposite is equally damaging, and contrary to what one might think, coddling and absolute lenience do NOT produce a happy child. Instead, they produce a whiny, demanding child and later on, a whiny, unmotivated flake who goes around in a fog of self-centeredness and risk avoidance.

I'm sorry... as much as I'm anti-coddling, you can no sooner stop it than you can stop the ocean tides. If the parents are such idiots that they insist on no red ink, I say give into them.

Their kids will ultimately pay, and pay dearly, when they step into the darwinian world of the workplace. There will be no coddling there.

They shouldn't have been coddled in school. This whole thing is based on a stupid premise that would exist in any color. If we all start grading in blue... what happens in 20 years? They'll ask for something else.

the color of ink.

Yes, a child who has been pampered and NEVER had a mistake pointed out will have problems in life, but I don't see any evidence to indicate that is happening here. The issue is the color of the ink, and as far as I can tell from what was posted here, it is the only issue. It doesn't appear that parents complained about the teacher's grading methods or teaching methods or anything but the color of the grading ink. You read into that a whole unhealthy parental psychosis that isn't there.

You ask "Where does it end?" It appears to me that it ended with changing the color of the ink. Problem solved. No big deal.

If only all the problems teachers face today could be solved by something as easy as buying a new pack of pens.

do NOT produce a happy child. Instead, they produce a whiny, demanding child and later on, a whiny, unmotivated flake who goes around in a fog of self-centeredness and risk avoidance."

Exactly. In other words, a present-day Typical American.

Just wait. The idiot parents will wear thin on you, too.

I taught in a very poor rural school system in the south. I've dealt with parents you probably couldn't imagine. I've had a parent come into my classroom and attack me physically in front of my class of third graders. I had a parent who came and took her son out of my classroom every day at 2:00 because she assumed we weren't doing anything important. "You aren't doing anything but reading to them," she said.

I had a child snatched from my care by her estranged father. The mother chewed me out and my principal sat silently doing nothing. The mother had never told me they were divorcing and that I shouldn't let the child go with the father. I can't tell you how many children I had who couldn't read, and their parents had no idea, because they couldn't read either.

But ultimately it wasn't the parents who drove me out of teaching. It was the low pay, the total absence of support from administrators, the absence of supplies, paper and books, and the complete lack of support for education from the state and local governments.

Teaching just isn't for everyone. It takes an incredibly special person to deal with the challenges. When I hear a teacher call parents "idiots" and refer to children sarcastically as "precious little angels" I recognize that as burnout. I don't hold it against the teacher. Believe me, I understand it. But I don't want my children in a burned out teacher's class, either.

In fact, we have some shared experiences. I was also attacked in front of my thrid grade class, but by a gnag banger. That's the areas I taught in.

I naively thought a rural area would be better. And I suppose it was somewhat less dangerous. But it was just so economically depressed and hopeless. :(

Frankly I embrace this statement:

In many other schools, it's black and white when it comes to red. The color has become so symbolic of negativity that some principals and teachers will not touch it.

I kinda think of red in those terms these days. Perhaps we have a small bit of transference here?

I always thought red was used by teachers simply because it jumped off the page. Color coding ink has been going on for a long time.

Sort of totally unrelated, but fun trivia anyway:

Sometimes on a submarine when a sailor is 'qualifying' (learning details of a boat) his qual card is signed in purple to signify weak knowledge. When that happens it's known as a grape. When the card is filled, the candidate is reviewed by a board of sailors in the format of "I finished the card, ask me anything." Do poorly on a non-grape in your qual review board, and you won't qualify, being assigned remedial work on that area. Do poorly on a grape and you'll earn a whole new card.

-Hoot

I do quality assurance checks on medical reports, and I was told by one of the supervisors that I shouldn't use red pens because it makes the employee feel like they are back in school and is demoralizing. (She read this in a magazine; it was not feedback from an employee.)

Nobody seems to mind the happy faces I draw on perfect reports, though, and I have asked each person I train if it seems condescending. They have all said they like the happy faces.

I guess if they don't want to see red they could try getting the answers right.

I wonder how shocked the same kids will be the first time their bosses yell at them when they screw up once they start working?

There is nothing wrong with red. Next someone will get upset because the assignment was graded. How dare you have right/wrong answers!
BTY I used to teach HS Electronics, so I have some experience here.

If some parent told me not to use red, I'd start using a red sharpy on their kid's paper, instead of a ball point pen.

Let it bleed, baby! Not mention, it clearly delineates my comments from the student's work. That's the real reason to use it, IMO.

sometimes I use green, sometimes purple, sometimes red, sometimes blue. It also depends on what color I used for the test. Some of my students have visual limitations so I ask them what color they can see best and try to make sure that I also chose a paper color that works best for them as well.

That was in 1934-87. The reason? There was one girl in my 8th grade class who I now realize was probably learning disabled. All of her papers would be covered with red,a nd the little pr*ck who sat behind he would say, "Is your paper bleeding? Are you stupid? Need a Band-Aid." And stuff like that. Yeah, sounds stupid, but...

Attitudes toward children have become bizarre, especially in the upper middle.

I'm watching a soap the other day. Kid, early teens, interrupts a funeral by screaming the dead woman deserved it, destroys evidence in a homicide to protect his mother (who attacked the woman) AND THE FATHER SAYS, "You did it out of love." !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And not one person on the soap reacted as if this were abnormal. What did the women watching think?

That protecting a child's self-esteem is all? Making a useful, productive citizen is nothing? Was I alone aghast?

God save us from the generation with happy childhoods.

I told them I hated getting back papers that looked all bloody. LOL! Grass is so much nicer. :D

At least one person per class (must be those darned 4-colour pens). Which isn't so bad, except in the cases where they're not double-spacing their lines, and it's an 800-word essay answer.

They told us in a teaching seminar that people found red "negative", several years ago, but I find that it's the least of the things people tend to complain about (the content or tone of the comments is something I focus on more).

Blue or black can make the comments difficult to read, especially if the students are using similar ink. I generally use green or purple, but have to keep extra pens on hand in case someone's writing in the same colour. (My marking pens cost more than the bulk package ones, because they seem to charge extra for "exotic" colours -- I can see why teachers might balk, if admin makes this demand but doesn't see fit to address the cost discrepancy.)

If I'm passing the paper to others to mark, we try to colour-code our comments so the student can tell who's making particular suggestions. If there are 2 or 3 of us, sometimes red is the only colour available.

Red ink is too stressful so we'll use purple.

Damn Bushite don't like the rules so we will change them. Why must we reinvent the wheel every single year on education? Let's find a new way to experiment on the children's education!!! Maybe this time we won't screw it up!!!

What a hoot, being stressed because of the red ink I use to grade papers....Students have never mentioned being upset with the colors I use to mark their papers....Maybe I should use PURPLE or PINK. That will surely set off some parents as a homophobic plot to corrupt their kids......BAHAAAAAAAAAA!

You all can laugh or say 'how silly' - that was my first reaction when I heard this for the first time nearly 30 years ago. But I have now taught for 25 years and I never use red to correct papers. I did my own action research on this subject and my kids were not as willing to look at their mistakes and learn from them (which is after all, the whole point of correcting papers) when I used red. So I use any other color I can find. I am seasonal - orange in October, green in March, pink in February, etc.

I also read a lot of research on this when it was first brought to my attention and I learned that this really is a big issue for a lot of learners. I even found a doctoral dissertation on this topic! I myself am a very visual learner and I use lots of colors in my teaching. Charts that I create for my classroom are in descending colors of blue, green, brown with important parts underlined in red because that is most eye catching and I want the kids to read and use the charts I put up. I teach my kids how to highlight rather than underline. And I insist on pencils for all Math work.

While I certainly understand the giggles and the 'how ridiculous' comments, I have found a lot of truth in this red is bad idea.

It's easier on the eyes, and doesn't have the negative connotations associated by many students with red ink. The research on this isn't just a bunch of fell-good crap (like much educational research -- but that's a whole other rant), it's been around for twenty years. Not grading in red ink has been common pratice among many teachers for decades.

This "story" was probably broken by a reporter married to a teacher who didn't have anything else to report.

I want off this planet as soon as possible.