04 Apr 2005

The Associated Press released a story that ran as "'Stressful' Red Falling Out Of Favor As Teacher's Choice" on KCAT TV in New Mexico on 4 Apr 2005.

The gist of the story is that school students, particularly elementary students, find it "stressful" to get their homework and tests returned with the teachers' corrections in red. The story says that a school principal in Pittsburgh "... has instructed his teachers to grade with colors with more 'pleasant-feeling tones' so that their instructional messages do not come across as derogatory or demeaning." In Trumbull, Connecticut, "parents complained that students get stressed out by red ink".

I did an Internet search on the three elementary schools [1] listed in the AP story. They each exist, so I'm losing hope that this story is an April Fool's joke.

Other than to be easily visible, the color of ink the teacher uses to correct a paper is insignificant. It's depressing, however, to hear that teachers, administrators and, worst of all, parents, think that it is more important to make the child feel good than to tell him he has a wrong answer. Reality is pretty much nonnegotiable, and a student's feelings on the matter are irrelevant. It is desirable, for instance, for a student to understand that "two pills every four hours" is not just as good an answer as "four pills every two hours".

Changing the color of the teachers' ink will have neither a damaging nor a useful effect on a child's education. The real danger is that the people making these decisions are in charge of our schools, and they will make other decisions that are equally silly, but far more harmful.

- Andrew Hadley

[1] Daniels Farm Elementary School, Trumbull, Conn; Thaddeus Stevens Elementary School, Pittsburgh, Pa.; Snowshoe Elementary School, Wasilla, Alaska

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