What is education coming to?

[the_wanlorn]

Has everyone heard about the school that’s banned using red ink on papers? This is utterly ridiculous. “Parents objected. Red writing, they said, was ‘stressful.’” Why WHY WHY do we find it so necessary to mollycoddle our kids? My alarm clock is stressful, but that doesn’t mean that I should get rid of it. Tests and quizzes are stressful, but you don’t see schools not using them anymore. Yeah, sure, red ink is stressful for people who see a huge F slashed across a paper, but so would any other color. If I could get a bunch of parents to go in and complain that grades/tests were stressful to our kids, would the principal then ban them? Or would we be being ridiculous? I’m thinking the latter. Yet, it’s okay to ban red ink because some parents are getting huffy since the whole world doesn’t think little Bobby’s writing is the gods’ gift to man? ”’You could hold up a paper that says 'Great work!' and it won't even matter if it's written in red,’ said Joseph Foriska, principal of Thaddeus Stevens Elementary in Pittsburgh.” It wouldn’t? Are you sure about that dude? In elementary school, my teachers all used red for corrections, suggestions, and praise. The color of the ink never mattered; what it said did. Where are they getting this bullshit? Sending me home with a “Good Work A+” in red across the top of my HW made me happy, as do comments like, “Did you take into consideration…” or “What about…” now. They don’t come across as “derogatory or demeaning”; it’s called constructive criticism and is going to come across however I interpret it regardless of the color of the ink*. Never mind how red ink shows up best because it’s completely not-blue and not-black. It’s a whole hell of a lot easier to find a teacher’s comments when they’re written in red; purple and other colors, in my experience, mix in with the blue so that my eyes scan past them nine times out of ten. How is this in any way preparing kids for The Real World? All of this feel-good shit and self-esteem-boosting in schools isn’t doing anyone any good. Not using red ink isn’t going to make comments from the teacher any less harsh, nor is it going to make them any more prepared for performance reviews and the like. Making sure that everyone gets a prize and feels good about themselves isn’t going to help them when they get out of school and have to actually earn things. If anything, we’re setting up this generation to undergo a mass mental breakdown once they graduate. If things keep going this way, I’m home schooling my kids. *For an example of this, go cruising around FFN and checking out the reviews and responses to the reviews. For the most part, all constructive criticism is regarded as a flame by anyone under the age of 16-ish. So now we're not allowed to say anything bad about someone's writing? Even when we're trying to help them become better writers? That's where I see the American education system heading, at least.

Comments

[crazyasitsounds.livejournal.com]

[(Anonymous)]

I completely agree with you... Red is the standard because it's EASIER TO SEE! Especially in this day and age of kids writing in godawfully disgusting pink and purple and lime green gel and glitter colors. NOBODY writes in red except for EDITING! CORRECTIONS!

Maybe I don't associate red with bad stuff because the only comments I ever got in red were "I feel the same way..." "Excellent observation, I hadn't considered that..." "GREAT JOB!" "FANTASTIC!" "100%!" "A+!" "This may be your best essay yet, may I use it an an example for future classes?" etc.

;-)

--Lando

[angelsholdher.livejournal.com]

Kid: Mommy, look, I got an A-!!!
Mother: AHHH, MY EYES!! It's in red!! How dare your teacher write hateful remarks on your paper! It's red!!!!
Kid: *confused*

[americasathena.livejournal.com]

NIRE YOU ARE AWESOME!! *is very proud because I feel exacterly the same way*