Well, apologizing to students when necessary is definitely better in my books than pretending that teachers (or any other adults) are perfect and never make any mistakes. I have run into too many organizations that will never, ever admit that they blew it because the admission would "reflect negatively" on their image. Sigh.
As for red pen, I don't think they're saying teachers shouldn't mark errors, but only that they should use some other color. It still seems a bit silly, but the reason teachers use red is that it is VISIBLE. It is visible because it has high contrast both with black or blue ink and with white paper. Any other color that jumps off the page at you and hits you in the eye (i.e. is visible) would probably get the same accusation (of being "too aggressive"). However, I can see that subconscious imagery attached to the color red (i.e. violence, blood) might make it have a different (and probably unintended) effect than, say, green or purple or hot pink. Now that not as many student assignments get turned in handwritten (which often means blue ink) any of those, or bright turquoise for that matter, would probably work as well as red.
no subject
As for red pen, I don't think they're saying teachers shouldn't mark errors, but only that they should use some other color. It still seems a bit silly, but the reason teachers use red is that it is VISIBLE. It is visible because it has high contrast both with black or blue ink and with white paper. Any other color that jumps off the page at you and hits you in the eye (i.e. is visible) would probably get the same accusation (of being "too aggressive"). However, I can see that subconscious imagery attached to the color red (i.e. violence, blood) might make it have a different (and probably unintended) effect than, say, green or purple or hot pink. Now that not as many student assignments get turned in handwritten (which often means blue ink) any of those, or bright turquoise for that matter, would probably work as well as red.