drowning in red ink

I heard on the local morning news on television this morning a story that some educators believe correcting students’ papers with red ink is bad for children. They believe that red ink has a stigma to it that will adversely affect young children’s psyches.

Boo, hoo.

Now, having seen the stock market fall so far this year and my portfolio recede with it, I am no fan of red ink, but I wouldn’t feel any better about it if my losses were expressed with blue or green ink. And, as for school children, if they make a mistake, the negative reinforcement of advising them of it is important to their ability eventually to get it right. So, no matter what color of ink is used to show errors, it will induce some sort bad feeling, but that is the point, isn’t it? If a child does something right it is important to give them positive reinforcement so they know they are on the right path. If they do something wrong they need to be advised so they can understand where they erred, so they can do it better next time.

And as for the stigma of red ink, maybe it is good if it gets the attention of children. That way it will be easier to identify problem areas. I’ll admit that I didn’t hear where the research came from about red ink, nor who was credited for the study that yielded these results, but I’m wondering how legitimate it is. I am not suggesting it was a hoax, however, I remember years ago, someone got bored and made up a story and put it on the wire services about how cattle belching were a major source of air pollution. I remember it created a stir at the time and got a lot of air play and print until some joker fessed up to making up the whole thing. However, once it was on paper, it became “true” and people cited this “research” for years in describing how the smoke rolling from the stacks of their factories and the acid rain it caused that was deforesting areas of the country paled in comparison to all those cattle and their infernal belching. People believe what they want to believe and if some nut gets something into the media that provides evidence for their beliefs, then suddenly their prejudice is proven to be correct.

Now, I have nothing against coddling children. As a matter of fact, I plead guilty to doing myself when my son was young. As he got older, however, I made sure he was exposed to the world so he knew what I had gotten him into. With care to put emphasis on the fact that life is worth living, that we should live life to the fullest and the alternative to life pales in comparison to life itself, a dose of reality is best administered early. After all, life is a competitive environment where everyone is not necessarily looking out for your best interests and where the stated goal of a worker is to become so efficient as to eliminate his own job. There will be managers above you who will try to eliminate your job for you and you’ll be exposed to maniacal bosses who will try to make your life hell. You’ll work for a CEO who doesn’t know who you are and will also be trying to eliminate your job. You’ll be protected by a government that will spend your money slaughtering innocent civilians in foreign countries, try to export your job to a foreign country and won’t know who you are, either.

So, a couple of red marks on the test you took yesterday, to indicate you were not correct, seem to be a good step on the path toward facing reality. If you don’t agree, take out your red pen and mark the areas with which you have a disagreement and send it back to me. Sometimes a couple of doses of reality are all you need to fix you up.

In Jimbo’s world we believe that if you take two of these you’ll be fine in the morning.