Friday, November 12, 2004

The Parting of the Red C

You thought I was done.
If you thought the candy issue was bad,

THIS IS WORSE

If you have children, it is best that they leave this room, because
this post contains RED.

If you are asking, "So what?" then I guess you didn't know.

Red is scary.
Red hurts children's self esteem.
RED IS OUT.


And to save us from our national nightmare

Purple is in.
Purple is the new red.
Purple is friendly.
Purple is the academic Compassionate-Conservative

According to Color Psychologists (Color Psychologists!!!)

Purple -- a mixture of

RED (authoritative and SCARY!!)

and
Blue (serene)

-- is less negative yet still constructive for grading student papers. Purple is attention-getting without being overly aggressive.
And ... AND ... (this is good) ...
...because Purple is linked to creativity and royalty, it is more encouraging to students.
I have one question:
What if you Royally Sucked?
Then What do you Do?

Excuse me while my head explodes.

I must be SuperTuna, because I somehow managed to survive elementary school, middle school, high school, college, and graduate school with the evil academic RED pen of damaging psyches.

What's next? Officer, I didn't stop for that light back there because it made me feel bad. It was.....It was....RED.

Seriously, a color that hurts your feelings is an excuse that I might expect out of the mouth of an extremely desperate TinyTuna. And you know what I'd tell her?

It's a color. Get Over It.

What is it with schools? KIDS DO NOT NEED A KUM-BAH-YAH CHORUS. Learning requires instruction, guidance, correction and praise -- in equal amounts. Self-esteem doesn't come from colored pens, candy or any other pseudo-educational gimmicks. Instead of making RED the scapegoat, teach kids that making mistakes is a normal and acceptable part of the learning process.

Caving to the UNSPEAKABLE HORRORS OF RED sets a dangerous precedence. Look out letters B, C, D and F -- you're probably the next to go. We don't want the little darlings to feel badly now, do we?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

So glad I'm not the only one seeing RED over this whole thing. What a ridiculous load of bullshit!

Kyara

Kat said...

I'd keep an eye on the number 7. It's looking a little shifty.

Panetón Junkie said...

You are a very wise and humorous tuna indeed, methinks.

Birthmom said...

You have got to be kidding. I mean, ok- what the hell? This touchy feely make everyone feel good crap is just that- crap. That's not 'real world'. It's not what these kids will experience later on in life. Like you said- you depressed about red? Get over it- it's a color.

Candy and now this? And they wonder why kids aren't up to par with other countries when it comes to education- we are too busy trying to make everyone 'feel good' that there isn't time for anything else........