Throw away those Red Pens !!!

Throw away those Red Pens, Teacher

They make me sad,

they tell I’m bad.

I ain’t bad, I am learning !!!

I make mistakes,

I did not understand,

Can you repeat ?

I don’t want to defeat !

Yes, I make mistakes for I’m learning !

Your RED MARKS tell me STOP !

STOP right away as in traffic light,

RED also has longest wavelength amongst all white.

I wanna correct myself,

I wanna reflect myself,

RED PEN is a FULL STOP.

I wanna correct myself yet..do not stop

I feel like a FLOP !

You taught me COMMA the other day,

There’s still a scope …

There is still my hope …

Can you use PENCIL, instead !

Till I am correct,

Till I am perfect.

I know it’s more pain, will take a lot of your time,

But I promise you teacher you will be the BEST in my lifetime.

I have been thinking to write this from long, for its difficult to breach into something which has been the core of fundamental rules of our lives, whether it’s social rules or educational rules. We are attached to them, we believe if this ain’t there, there isn’t any alternative. We keep following them blindly, without seeing it’s consequences ! Just try to strike them off your list, you can yourself create alternatives.

RED COLOR which symbolizes DANGER, STOP, WRONG, INCORRECT, right from play school in their nursery rhymes, how can be parameter for their potential ? How can it define them !

They are learning, they ought to make mistakes. With RED PEN we give them the message, mistakes are not acceptable, mistakes are irreversible, mistakes cannot be corrected, and that’s our Verdict !

I use pencil, a graphite black light colored pencil with an eraser !

As simple :-)

I tell each one of them, you ought to make mistakes, they are ACCEPTED, they are RESPECTED, they are ERASED, you can take your time to understand, I can REPEAT as long you don’t understand. This is OUR teamwork. When you leave my class, I need you to learn all what we taught.

My reflection of teaching is their learning, if they are not learning, I am not teaching well enough then. I need introspection, they do not. I need to change myself, they are NATURAL…