I had lunch on Monday with a couple of ladies who have had a big impact at CSC, especially at our school.  Shari Reasoner has served as a consultant to the school as a volunteer and staff member for years, and Amy Luck is a preschool teacher who was there the first year the school got off the ground.  They are both licensed educators, and I just learned they both have a thing about red pens.  Get this; they're against using them.

What sort of new fangled thinking is this?  Teachers who don't use red pens?  I thought red pens were like desks, apples and summers off--fundamentals of the teaching profession.  As I talked to them I felt convicted about something...I'm a red pen parent.  Honestly, we have our kids read for 20-30 minutes a day and write three sentences about what they read.  I correct them with a red pen.  Not only that, but I'm kind of a jerk about grading when I'm the one to do it.  They are amped when they happen to get an 'A'.  It doesn't happen a ton.

This reminds me of a study I heard of on children succeeding differently in different income levels.  Research was done on parents who were on welfare and parents who had professional jobs.  The biggest difference they found was in language.  The kids who grew up in professional households heard 20 million more words by the time they were three.  Not only that, but those kids had heard 500,000 words of encouragement and 80,000 words of discouragement.  The kids who grew up on welfare had heard 80,000 words of encouragement and 200,000 words of discouragement.  That's a significant difference.

This is a major point of conviction for me.  My gut response is to try to get my kids to do better, to correct what they did wrong.  When I see any report card (including my own) I give first attention to the grades that need to come up.  I for one need to be deliberate: be one of the parents who encourages 6 times for every correction.  For starters, next time it's my turn to go over the kids' sentences I'll be getting out a nice black pen.