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SYDNEY (Reuters) – Teachers using red pen to mark students’ work could be harming their psyche as the color is too aggressive, according to education strategies drafted by an Australian state government. The “Good Mental Health Rocks” kit, which was distributed this month to about 30 schools in Queensland state, offers strategies such as “don’t mark in red pen (which can be seen as aggressive) – use a different color.”
Other tips include structuring time for peer tutoring every day, apologizing to students when necessary and asking students to conduct a “personal skills audit” where they focus on their individual strengths rather than their weaknesses. The kit, designed to help Queensland teachers address mental health in the classroom, suggests social and emotional well being has been linked to young people’s schooling, among other things.
The education aid has sparked a row in parliament, with deputy opposition leader Mark McArdle calling it “kooky, loony, loopy lefty policies.”
But Health Minister Stephen Robertson, whose department devised the kit, said youth suicide was a serious issue.
“If mental health professionals determine that as one of a number of strategies teachers should consider, then I’ll support them every day of the week,” he told reporters recently. “This is not a matter for ridicule, this is serious.”
I use to have a desire to live in Australia… it’s gone now.
Old news. I got my degree in English ed in 1997 and they were telling us that it might be better to use a color other than red to grade with.
I say they need to go back to the Dunce Cap and make them sit in the corner.
Yes, old news. This practice came by NJ Universities few years ago, likely widespread…
Ironically I mark all of my wrong answers in red myself…
I live in Southern California and never seen that down here…hmm…truly sad…
Did Obama and Ayers hand grant money to Sydney schools too?
We got the same advice in one of my methods classes ca.1999. IIRC, purple was a recommended color.
The first time I heard of this was in 1983.
I had a few teachers in grade school who graded in green and purple. It’s true that a paper-full of corrections and an ‘F’ on top is so much more soothing in green.
If anything, college professors should avoid using the check mark to indicate a correct answer. I nearly have a heart attack whenever I get back an ‘A’ exam.
I use to have a desire to live in Australia…….. it’s gone now.
Fail.
Ok, let me get this straight. According to the article it’s not approved to correct papers in red ink because it would hurt the kids psyche leading them to commit suicide.
So therefore it is better to let them think everything is OK and they are doing great until they are out of school and into the real world where they get to discover for themselves that they are royal screwups.
Whereupon they realized that if anyone really cared they would have been told this years earlier when they had the support and opportunity to do things better instead of wasting all this time.
And then commit suicide.
I think it’s a good idea to use a color other than red, because it really does cause anxiety. Although, you could probably argue this is negative reinforcement that encourages kids not to turn in work that comes back all marked up.
There may or may not be some merit to this, but it absolutely should not be a government mandate, of course.
Then again, I think all schools should be privately run.
Well, I guess it’s better not to use red. Maybe they should use pink, that way they’ll recognize it when they get a pink slip.
I fill out my tests in red. It screws with the teachers’ minds…
My wife once got reprimanded at work for writing feedback on a document in red ink even though the feedback was positive and constructive. This was even put on her annual performance revue.
She used red ink because they used red pens in her department for marking up shipping forms and the pen was handy. She quit and moved to a much better job. The previous company is no longer in business.
I always encouraged red ink for notes comments and corrections. The point was to bring the original writer’s attention to the point quickly. Mind you, this was informal and for my department only and I had intelligent, mature people working for me.
Of course if we all went to pink like Radio Shack life would be good.
School kids are a different matter. They are there to learn, not be slammed with stress “because that is the real world”. I can’t opine about any link between red ink and child suicide, but if this change saves ONE life, the cost is worth it. In my opinion the only criteria for the marker is to use a contrasting color.
The purpose of education is to transmit “the cultural heritage of one generation to the next generation and to train the minds of the new generation so that they can absorb ‘ancient learning’ and apply it to the problems of today.”
Quoted from Barry Goldwater’s The Conscience of Conservative
You can’t train a mind unless you break through the barrier of complacency. And nothing breaks through that barrier like a problem marked wrong with large, nasty looking red marks.
Red means danger, stop what you are going, re-evaluated what you are doing, etc.
Green means all is ok, I’m happy, Money.
Purple – I have no clue.
#16 – LL
>>Purple – I have no clue.
Purple is for homo-secksual.
http://tinyurl.com/5qsx5f
.. and even MORE damning:
http://tinyurl.com/2nsvgo
It’s that gosh-darned Gay Mafia at work again. Going after those little straight boys. I knew it!
#18, You need to put warning signs on your links if you intend to send someone to a Barney site. That’s just wrong.
When you don’t spank you kids they grow up to be adult, limp-wristed wusses so full of sensibility even gay guys like me want to treat them with the same tenderness a Canadian furrier would do to a baby seal.
OMG!
This is pathetic. These kids will have the shock of their lives when they join the rest of us in the real world.
ALL proofing, correcting and grading should be in red. So it stands out. Nobody complains about getting an A++ in red pencil. The core notion is bogus. Idiots looking for “something” to offer as a “remedy” for a non-existing malady.
Nice 3-D photo.
Can’t be an Engineer that’s for sure. What color pen are they going to use for mark ups? Purple? Green? They’ll get their behinds handed to them.