Purple Pen Fad Has Veteran Educator Seeing Red
by Jim Brown
August 31, 2004
(AgapePress) - Office supply stores are increasing their purple pen supplies, now that several U.S. teachers have reportedly begun using purple ink instead of red to mark student papers. Claiming red has negative connotations, the instructors say they are promoting students' self-confidence. But one California teacher thinks these purple pen pedagogues are making a mistake.The Boston Globe reports some teachers across the country are now correcting their students' papers with purple pens instead of red ones, because they believe red has a negative connotation, and they have concerns that it adversely affects students' confidence and self-esteem. One teacher at a middle school in Northampton, Massachusetts, insists, "Purple ... doesn't look as scary as red." And another says, "Red is definitely a no-no."
But Carol Jago, a veteran English teacher at California's Santa Monica High School, believes such educators are making a well-intentioned error. "I think there's something about the visual message, when a student has turned in a very sloppy paper," she says, "... I want it to be visually startling to the student and say to that student, 'I didn't do my best work here.'"
The development of this educational trend has not escaped Jago, who has been teaching for 31 years. She says for about the past decade she has noticed that many educators were encouraged in their teacher training to use colors like green or purple when they mark papers or grade tests, so student papers would not potentially end up looking as if they were "dripping in blood."
However the veteran teacher is critical of the move by a growing number of teachers to follow that advice. Although many teachers have been taught to view marking students' work with red ink as a negative and potentially harmful to students' feelings, Jago feels that, when it comes to learning, a little hurt may not necessarily be a bad thing.
The whole purple pen notion is based on "an incorrect premise that we don't want to hurt students' feelings," the California teacher says. "But if students are making dumb spelling mistakes, I want to hurt their feelings a little bit. I want them to do it right, because I care -- because I know it matters, even when they're not sure that it matters."
The remarks a good teacher writes in red on students' papers are not designed to shame students, Jago points out, but to flag their attention and make them aware of where they have not met the standard. "Honestly, the comments you will always find me writing are, 'Come see me for help, please, please; I know you can do better,'" she says. "The comments I write in red are not saying, 'Student, you're a bad person,' but are saying, 'Let me help you. This isn't good enough for the work we need to be doing in this class.'"
According to the teacher, red may be a startling color, but the important thing is that it gets results. Jago notes, just as a red stop sign is the best way to get drivers to pay attention to a potentially dangerous intersection, making red marks on a pupil's paper is the best way to get the student's attention focused on a learning or comprehension problem that needs to be corrected.
