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Australian Teachers Told Marking In Red Damages Students
Teachers who mark homework with a red pen could be inflicting psychological damage on their students, according to new Australian guidelines. Teachers are being urged to use less aggressive colors, like the-real-world-is-going-to-eat-you-alive green, and setting-you-up-for-failure blue. Stephen Robertson, the Queensland health minister, defended the new rules, saying that 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 said. "This is not a matter for ridicule, this is serious."
Seriously, I had an Literature teacher in high school that felt red was getting a bad rap, so he used green for negative marks and red for positive marks. It didn't bother me so much, but I think he drove a student with OCD completely mad.
Right, after getting my paper marked up with red ink to the point I am supposed to be psychologically damaged, I go home and kill people in grand theft auto for about 4 hours, then sleep and dream about my recent Gears of War victories, which involved killing more people and the use of a chainsaw.
The red ink is still far more damaging, though.
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Don't give handwritten responses (in any colour). Instead, emulate what will happen then the little darlings get out into the big wide world of commerce and industry. Make them email their assignments in, then completely ignore them. When pressed (for the third or fourth time) to mark them, skim the first couple of sentences and award a purely random mark based solely on that.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons