"Purple is the new Red"

A press release from Pilot Pen we may find of interest:


Press Release Source: Pilot Pen


Purple is the 'New Red'
Monday January 24, 2:52 pm ET
Students and Teachers Prefer 'Kinder, Gentler' Purple Ink Over Red for
Grading Papers
Purple Deemed 'Less Anxiety Producing'


NEW YORK, and TRUMBULL, Conn., Jan. 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Purple, the
traditional color of royalty, is making the trip from the castle to the
classroom -- thanks to the feeling among teachers today that when it
comes to marking papers, red is, well, a little too angry.
Purple's popularity can be tracked country-wide with the sales of
purple pens showing a marked increase and pen manufacturers, like Pilot
Pen, producing a wider variety of purple-inked products. "We've
introduced six purple pens to our line. Purple ink has really taken off
this year as more teachers tell us about their preference for purple as
a more-friendly replacement for red," said Robert Silberman, VP of
Marketing for Pilot Pen. "And their students agree -- it's less
aggressive but conveys a feeling of authority in a constructive way."

Office Depot, one of the world's leading resellers of office products
and services, has also noticed a spike in sales of purple pens, and is
offering a wider assortment than ever before. "There's been a
noticeable increase in the popularity of purple ink," said Michele
McLaughlin, Associate Retail Merchant for Office Depot. "We've
dedicated more shelf space to purple pens and based on positive
customer feedback, we also have three-packs and even dozen boxes of
exclusively purple pens."

Teachers from around the country have also reported the palliative
power of purple:

* "I teach High School Special Education classes so my students
already
suffer from low self-esteem. When I corrected their essays
with red
pens it made things harder on them. Using purple pens has
allowed me
to give my students constructive criticism without damaging
their self
confidence."
Heather Pizzuro. Monmouth Regional High School, Tinton
Falls, NJ

* "I use purple to correct class work. It isn't as harsh as red
or as
'old fashioned."
Susan Schenker, Library teacher, P.S. 41, New York, NY

* "I never use red -- I find purple to be more friendly and less
threatening."
Vanessa Powell, 5th grade, Snowshoe Elementary School,
Wasilla, AK

* "Red can be jarring, confrontational and abrasive. With purple
ink I
can critique my students in a gentle way that allows them to
focus on
the message and not the medium and my students seem to respond
more
favorably to purple. "
Justin Kazmark, 6th Grade Math Teacher, P.S. 188, New York,
NY

Color authority Leatrice Eiseman, director of the Pantone Color
Institute and author of six books on color, says that purple has the
effect of "softening the blow" as opposed to seeing red, which raises
blood pressure, causing the heart to beat faster. "Red signals danger
and warning, and anthropologists have found this has been true down the
ages," she said.

About Pilot Pen

Pilot Pen, the third largest pen company in the U.S., offers
superlative writing instruments renowned for quality, performance,
cutting-edge technology and consumer satisfaction. Widely acknowledged
as innovators, Pilot was first to introduce Americans to fine point
writing and currently maintains the top share position in the gel pen
category with its #1 selling G2 pen. Pilot's line also includes the
acclaimed Dr. Grip family of products that features an ergonomic, wide
comfort grip that actually reduces writing fatigue and the prestigious
Namiki Collection of writing instruments for collectors and
connoisseurs, as well as general consumers. Pilot Pen has operated in
the U.S. since 1972; its parent company is the oldest and largest
manufacturer of writing instruments in Japan.

Contact: Andy Morris and Company
Carol Klenfner 212 561-7467

"john cline ii" wrote in message
news:BMyQd.28835$wc.900@trnddc07...

A press release from Pilot Pen we may find of interest:

Thanks for sharing. I have, as a user, also seen a spike in purple color
inks and pens. It is also my own favority color.

By the way, the purple G2 refill sucks. It is more of a red than purple.
Also, it is available in very very fine point and is hence not as smooth as
the normal black one.

-s

Fascinating. The Boston Globe ran an article on this theme last
summer:

http://www.boston.com/news/education...seeing_purple/

You have to wonder about nature vs. nurture here. If the trend takes
hold and a generation of students see big purple X's next to their
wrong answers, how will that, uh, color their view of purple?

On 2005.02.16 00:57:22, wrote:

Fascinating. The Boston Globe ran an article on this theme last
summer:

http://www.boston.com/news/education...seeing_purple/

You have to wonder about nature vs. nurture here. If the trend
takes hold and a generation of students see big purple X's next to
their wrong answers, how will that, uh, color their view of purple?

It will fill them with fear and loathing. (That is, in so far as they
care about school.) It's not the colour that frightens the kids, but
the pastoral authority of the teacher. The colour is a signifier that
merely points to that authority.

Of course, we're not supposed to say "merely" in reference to
signification. After all, different colours will signify "VENOMOUS
TEACHER COMMENT" in subtly different ways. Some colours call more
attention to themselves. Think beige vs. Fire Engine Red. Signifiers
are also tainted by the signifying they do. They end up carrying
semiotic baggage from one sign to another. Regal purple is part of a
reactionary attempt to prop up sinking teacher authority with the
feudal social order. Green reminds students of money and the
potential earnings they lose by doing poorly. The problem with red is
that it is the colour of revolution, the colour of the blood spilled
in the triumph of Enlightenment over privilege. Since teachers are
representatives of Enlightenment, their use of the colour is Simply
Too Much, An Imperiousness That Cannot Be Tolerated. It's also
bright.

The argument is that a more subtle colour does less signifying and
therefore calls less attention to the teacher's authority. Students
will feel less intimidated and will therefore do better in school.
The use of watered down grey inks will bridge the vast chasm between
teacher and student and usher in a new age of wisdom.



--


NEWARK has been REZONED!! DES MOINES has been REZONED!!

"john cline ii" wrote:

A press release from Pilot Pen we may find of interest:

Hi John,

Sorry, I didn't find it interesting and really don't trust the originating
source of this article. I would like to hear what teachers in some of the
southern states have to say about this before I yank all our red ink off the
shelves. It sounds to me that maybe sales of purple gel pens are a little
slow at Pilot this year. I can only imagine what my Dad would have said if
I brought home a paper with "purple" markings on it (especially if it had
been a male teacher). If anything, I think teachers need to be getting
tougher on students instead of softer. Right now there appears there is
little if any discipline conducted at school or at home. I can understand
not wanting your kid busted across his or her backside with a 2x4 with holes
drilled in it (and yes, I can relate) but worrying about them being offended
by the color "red", give me a break. While we're at it, let's make them all
wear uniforms too ;-)

Best wishes,

Chuck Swisher

Dave Garrett writes:

There's an article in today's USA Today related to this which claims
that children born in the past 20 years or so, during the period
when "self-esteem" has been emphasized, are having trouble dealing
with criticism once they enter the real world and the job market.

To put my psychologist hat on for a moment: you can't just give people
self-esteem. They have to earn it by mastering something.

Tim McNamara wrote:
Dave Garrett writes:


There's an article in today's USA Today related to this which claims
that children born in the past 20 years or so, during the period
when "self-esteem" has been emphasized, are having trouble dealing
with criticism once they enter the real world and the job market.


To put my psychologist hat on for a moment: you can't just give people
self-esteem. They have to earn it by mastering something.

No, you can't give them self-esteem, but you can jolly well give them a
superiority complex!

Regards,

DAve

DaveW wrote:

No, you can't give them self-esteem, but you can jolly well give them
a
superiority complex!

Regards,

DAve

Why no, we're born with THAT!

satrap
who uses ALL colours

Garglemonster wrote:

Of course, we're not supposed to say "merely" in reference to
signification. After all, different colours will signify "VENOMOUS
TEACHER COMMENT" in subtly different ways. Some colours call more
attention to themselves. Think beige vs. Fire Engine Red. Signifiers
are also tainted by the signifying they do. They end up carrying
semiotic baggage from one sign to another. Regal purple is part of a
reactionary attempt to prop up sinking teacher authority with the
feudal social order. Green reminds students of money and the
potential earnings they lose by doing poorly. The problem with red is
that it is the colour of revolution, the colour of the blood spilled
in the triumph of Enlightenment over privilege. Since teachers are
representatives of Enlightenment, their use of the colour is Simply
Too Much, An Imperiousness That Cannot Be Tolerated. It's also
bright.

It's been 20 years since I had to grade any papers, but all this chatter
about colors on student papers so far has ignored the point(s) of red ink.

As far as the teacher/TA/grader is concerned, something is needed to
mark up the paper which makes it easy to figure out what the grade is.
You just went over the test, paper, or lab report once, marking errors
-- now you need to scan back, QUICKLY, and figure out the grade. It
really doesn't matter what color you've used, as long as it's distinctive.

Likewise, when a student gets his/her paper back, s/he wants to make
sure the paper was graded correctly, and, if s/he is a superior student,
learn from her/his mistakes. So the paper needed to be marked with a
tamper-resistant ink that is distinctive from what the student used
originally. (Last thing I wanted as a TA was to have to read the
blasted paper a THIRD time to find all the mark-ups!)

It was more-or-less understood that you didn't write a paper with red
ink, since that was what the teacher would mark it up with. (One
current MD tried that with me -- I marked him down for EVERY grammatical
or spelling error on his lab report; he didn't try it again!) It
doesn't really matter what color is used to mark up a paper, as long as
there's an understood convention.

Teachers aren't doing their students any favors by not teaching. If
they screw up, the student will continue to screw up if their mistakes
aren't pointed out to them. (They may continue even if mistakes ARE
pointed out, but then it's on their heads!) You can't force a student
to succeed, but you can give them the tools they need -- that's called
teaching. Or you can make them feel good in the short term -- I don't
know what to call that. But the students who are resistant to learning
may eventually associate some color or another with having their papers
marked down; to decline to marking a student's paper is doing nobody any
favors.

Pat

On 2005.02.17 11:16:06, Pat Lamb wrote:


Teachers aren't doing their students any favors by not teaching. If
they screw up, the student will continue to screw up if their
mistakes aren't pointed out to them. (They may continue even if
mistakes ARE pointed out, but then it's on their heads!) You can't
force a student to succeed, but you can give them the tools they
need -- that's called teaching. Or you can make them feel good in
the short term -- I don't know what to call that.

that's called "what you have to do in today's university if you don't
have tenure".

to decline to marking a student's paper is doing nobody any favors.

absolutely. unfortunately, many students and education bureaucrats
don't understand that.


--


YOU PICKED KARL MALDEN'S NOSE!!