Warning: May Scar Weenie Kids

Well, I was reading the Deseret Morning News before school a few days ago this week, and stumbled upon a rather interesting article.

The article talked about how one school district back east banned red pens. Teachers are no longer allowed to grade papers using red pens. The age old standard, the trademark of the teacher, the signature of critique was smitten.

And then they replaced it with a fruity purple pen.

Yeah, they replaced all the red pens with purple pens, under the justification that red is too intimidating, and would ruin a student’s ego. Red is just too emotionally scarring, too demeaning. When a student sees a red mark on a paper, he goes home and cries in his pillow for a week.

I think its lame. I can stand up to red pen just fine. In fact, I like the red pen, it tells me what I have to improve upon, and I value that a whole lot more than I value a "good job" written on the top. I love the red pen, and I'll personally miss the old boy.

I really am worried about the way this crazy society is going. Everything has to be idiot-proofed. Just on the off chance that someone goes on a shooting spree because they were haunted by that red pen, we have to eliminate all red pens. Just in case.

I don't want anybody to go on a shooting spree, but I think we've gone way too far on this one. Isn't emotional scarring the whole reason behind using red pens anyways? Aren't we trying to say "Hey, you gotta fix this you idiot!" Instead, teachers now write, in purple ink "Good job, you got this one right." Sure you missed the other 17 questions, but we're so proud of you for that one that we're gonna bake you a cake. But just incase you're allergic to cakes, we're gonna bring it in freeze dried from the district, and let it warm up in the sun. We won't use a microwave, because that may or may not radiate the plants, we don't know, but because we're ignorant, we're gonna stay away from it anyways. Afterwards, we're gonna let you eat that cake, but not in the sun, because you might get sunburnt, then cancer. And we wouldn't want anything to ruin your bubble life, oh no.

Good crap! I'm pretty sure that in 40 years the adults of this country are going to be so sheltered they aren't gonna know how to deal with problems. What happened to the good old days when my mom was in kindergarten when she could eat paste all she wanted? Stick goes into paste bucket, stick goes into mouth. My mom turned out awesome, she's the coolest person I know. Maybe the paste did her good. Now, instead of making cool mutant moms like they did 50 years ago, now we make weenie kids! Weenie kids that have to have their parents come to the counseling center to change a class for them. Grow a pair and talk to them yourself!

Look, if we keep sheltering our kids like this, bad things are going to happen. They're not gonna be able to deal with criticism, work through problems, or function as real people. We gotta pull our heads out here, or we're gonna be hosed in another 40 years.