short takes

[cellio]

Funny: Only in... $location.

Overheard in the office: "Should that be on fire?"

From the whiners-with-too-much-time-on-their-hands department, a new education fad: some parents (and students) object to grading in red ink. Red is "stressful", some say, and teachers should be using more "positive" colors like blue. Sheesh. Some people will read negativity into anything. It's just a color, people! And for the record, I much prefer mark-up in red as opposed to blue or the fluffy alternatives like turquoise (which is too light to be able to see easily). Red has the best contrast with the black ink on the white page; if you want me to see your little squiggle, don't use lime green!

Comments

[zare-k.livejournal.com]

The cow wash and 24hr Fitness photos are hilarious.

The no red ink business is pretty silly. If you care about your school work, a page marked up full of errors in rainbow sparkly pen is just as stressful as a page marked up full of errors in red pen (maybe more so-- red is a neutral markup color to me, but I have some unpleasant memories of a couple of teachers who were outwardly perky and friendly but actually quite vindictive if they didn't like you), and if you don't care then no color is going to make a difference. But just to play devil's advocate, suppose that there is some credibility to the notion that red markup is stressful and discouraging for students, but other colors or markup are not. Which is more important-- that students absorb the corrections and learn from them, period, or that they see the corrections in red markup and perhaps learn from them less?