muddysmind.com

why does it not suprise me that fox news would run a story like this. its a non issue. they interviewd one teacher. i had a teacher that used to use a black marker to grade papers. does that mean she was a black panther and wants mumia abu jamal freed?

"...i had a teacher that used to use a black marker to grade papers. does that mean she was a black panther and wants mumia abu jamal freed?"

No, but it probably means that she was sniffing them in between lunch and recess....did you happen to notice any wobble to her walk?

Besides, fox news reports on things and you can decide for yourself how important it is. Obviously, you've decided it to be a non issue so that's *your* stand on the subject and your right to take that stand. But muddy and I *have* kids and I've heard stupid things like this before. Actually, quite a few times before. If they're so concerned about "damaging" a childs self esteem then they can just write something possitive beside the "F" grade. I actually do see what they're saying when they mention that in some cases, a child has worked so hard on a paper and then the teacher goes and writes all over it wiht red ink. BUT come on! The teacher has the authority and *is* the one teaching the material. They have to use something bold to make corrections with. Besides, here's where a child starts to learn what it's like to survive in the real world and "softening the blow" of a bad grade does them NO favors at all.

BTW...haven't we discussed this subject before on this site?

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Message deleted as off-topic. And he changed your signature for God's sake, quit whining. In the Marine Corps we have words for people like you.

Hey Mooseboy, as far as I am concerned, this is exactly the type of issues that are causing our public school to fail so badly.

Teachers in our public schools are far to concerned with self-esteem to actually teach anything. Worries of self-esteem hurt classroom discipline also.

The real concerned for self-esteem should come from how kids treat each other. Teachers should worry about whether or not a kid is learning .

"this is exactly the type of issues that are causing our public school to fail so badly"

really? since when is it so important? i can understand you may have a few teachers here and there that for whatever reason use a different color as some Political or social statement. however i can say from my experiences that most teachers use Certain brands of pens and certain colors. in most cases, [at least from my obersvations]it has more to do with preference and convience [just grabing something in their drawer] more than it does as a self esteem booster.

thats why i say its a "non issue".

I think you missed his point Mooseboy84, it was not as much a reference to the ink as it was to the fact our schools should be teaching facts not feelings.

Exactly muddy.

"Worries of self esteem hurts classroom disicpline". is that true? when did this begin? teaching self esteem and making social statements about pen color are two different issues. this pen color "issue" is pop psychylogy feel good non sense at its worst. it doesnt represent a "larger" issue. self esteem boosting in children does "boost" performance and that has been Well documented.

the bigger problem in classrooms nowadays is teachers not having enough supplies.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-4495281,00.html

Boost performance though it may, in the real world, no one gives 2 flips about your self-esteem. They need to be taught to learn to deal with that fact young, rather than the hard way. The whole deal about the red pens is that using one supposedly hurts self-esteem. Good. Failure should feel bad, that's why it's called FAILURE.

When I went to a private school, we had less supplies than the average public school did, the teachers made less, most of them didn't even have a college degree or state certification (wasn't required back then.) Yet the students at that school (including myself) consistently outperformed the best school systems in the country. My teachers didn't give a crap about how I felt when I did bad, they weren't brutal either, but they sure didn't go out of their way to make sure I felt good about myself after I did something wrong.

Kids did not talk in class, pass notes in class or anything but work. Why? Because they knew they'd be punished, their parents would be notified, and it would overall be a miserable experience.

You do not need anything other than a chalkboard, chalk, paper, pens and something to bear down on to teach kids. Books help for reading but you can get those at a library.

Simply put, textbooks and aforementioned writing utensils are all that is needed for everything but a computer class or lab class. If they need more supplies, then they don't need to be teaching. You can perform physics labs with basic household items, so I don't see where that's a problem. Chemistry and biology might get interesting...so I guess they need stuff there.

The biggest problems in schools: lack of discipline, lack of parental involvement (which probably stems from the latch-key kid enviroment), and teachers unions.

Bottom line, if you can't perform simple tasks when your feelings are hurt, it doesn't get easier down the road.

"When I went to a private school, we had less supplies than the average public school did..."

Yep...same at the one *I* attended. I even remember my step-dad got upset because he couldn't understand why my mother had to pay so much in tuition and we *still* had to go and pay lab fees AND - if memory serves me correcly - I think we sometimes even had book fees for workbooks we sometimes used (regular books *were* supplied to us but... )

As far as the stupid pen thing goes, I remember (I believe it was) my eighth grade teacher (though alot of teachers did this) had to "track" down her red pen from another teacher who shared her class room because she "just couldn't grade her students papers properly without it.". She would always laugh about the situation but she wouldn't come back without one...even if she had to steal...*cough*...I mean borrow from another teacher. Come to think of it, pens and chalk were *always* dissapearing from the teachers desks and 98% ofthe time, it was from the other teachers.

"Kids did not talk in class, pass notes in class or anything but work. Why? Because they knew they'd be punished, their parents would be notified, and it would overall be a miserable experience."

Geesh! What school did *you* attend?! The Stepford Children's Christian Academy?:-D JK....actually, we were pretty well disciplined too because if you misbehaved....there would be detention and/or they *would* take a paddle to your sorry butt. Didn't matter how old you were either and if your parents didn't like it...they could enroll you in some other school. Also, I think that because our school was very small (as compared to public schools) I think it was also easier for teachers to keep a proper eye on everyone. We had a smaller teacher/student ratio than other schools...maybe that's one of the *many* reasons for the good discipline.

BTW, skywalker...just out of curiousity, do you know what curriculum your school used? Was it A beka (sp) book or something else?