Leave red pens alone

Some governmental education forum in Queensland recently talked about banning teachers from using red pens to mark work. The reason? It is said that red pens can be seen by children as aggressive or confrontational. Therefore, it was suggested that the red pen be ditched in favour of other "less aggressive" colours.

An online poll was conducted by Courier Mail in the wake of the red pen debate. The poll asked if teachers should stop using red pen. Thankfully, 95% of the voters said "no".

Frankly, the red pen debate is ridiculous. Why ban red pens? Red pens were never an issue with children from previous generations, like myself. So why should it be an issue now? Don't you need red ink to differentiate or distinguish from the more "common" black or blue ink? Teachers are meant to correct students' mistakes, & red pen is just 1 tool to help them do that. Just because the colour stands out doesn't mean it's aggressive.

I'm surprised that the question of red pens was even raised. What next? Are they going to ban green pens because green represents envy or jealousy? Huh, if they ban green pens, I can imagine an uproar among the auditing profession! Are they going to ban blue pens because blue is associated with depression? Black is seen as evil, so shall we ditch black pens?

Hhmmm, I would have thought people have better, more useful & much more important things to discuss than the merits of red pens. Hey, I know of a good discussion topic: Should teachers & lecturers be forced to use fountain pens? Let's discuss at the next education forum, shall we....