The fear of red.

The colors has a lot of stories. Red has been a colour of danger and bright. For everyone, they have their ‘red’ story. The students in school has a different interpretation of red. The student loves red and black unlike the red words on her paper.

Given the qualitative feedback on the paper, I write a lot of comments, and remarks on the paper, correcting and giving the feedback. Less of tick marks and more of descriptive feedback. She says, “yee laal laal mat banao paper ko.”

I gave another paper to another student with the usual feedback and comments.

She has done exceptionally well. I wrote her comments and basic structures for her to recollect. The sight of too much of red ink on her paper put her in confusion if she has done a good job or not.

I do not want to put tick mark and wrong mark for the sign doesn’t let you think beyond what went wrong. I underline the keywords that make them wrong. I underline the keywords that make things right and I basically talk through my pen.

The psychology of red color, the kids are apprehensive and keep asking if they’ve done it right. Constant validation from the teacher is needed maybe.