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SYDNEY (Reuters) – Teachers using red pen to mark students’ work could be harming their psyche as the color is too aggressive, according to education strategies drafted by an Australian state government. The “Good Mental Health Rocks” kit, which was distributed this month to about 30 schools in Queensland state, offers strategies such as “don’t mark in red pen (which can be seen as aggressive) – use a different color.”
Other tips include structuring time for peer tutoring every day, apologizing to students when necessary and asking students to conduct a “personal skills audit” where they focus on their individual strengths rather than their weaknesses. The kit, designed to help Queensland teachers address mental health in the classroom, suggests social and emotional well being has been linked to young people’s schooling, among other things.
The education aid has sparked a row in parliament, with deputy opposition leader Mark McArdle calling it “kooky, loony, loopy lefty policies.”
But Health Minister Stephen Robertson, whose department devised the kit, said youth suicide was a serious issue.
“If mental health professionals determine that as one of a number of strategies teachers should consider, then I’ll support them every day of the week,” he told reporters recently. “This is not a matter for ridicule, this is serious.”
I use to have a desire to live in Australia… it’s gone now.
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