How Well Do You Know Colours?

DO you know that your choice of colour as exhibited even in the selection of the paint for your house can affect your mood and the way you behave?

Well, if you did not know, watch the way your children, for instance, react to either the colour brown, red or pink.

This came up at the New Year School's symposium on Thursday when a legal practitioner and lecturer, Charlotte Kesson-Smith, in a paper she presented on the country's educational reforms, demonstrated that colours can affect teaching and learning.

She spoke on 'Governance during the past five decades and challenges for the future: Examining the relevance of Ghana's educational policies' and stressed the need to emphasise on all four divisions of education namely: language and literature, science and Mathematics, Visual Arts and Creative Arts in basic and secondary schools.

Research, she said, has shown that yellow as a colour, boosts human memory, while red makes people more alert. 'Research has also revealed that the colour blue is good in classrooms because it makes children calm'.
Ms. Kesson-Smith asked: 'If research had shown that these are the likely effects of colours on people, why then are our children in brown uniforms and brown classrooms? Does this environment promote learning?'

people, why then are our children in brown uniforms and brown classrooms? Does this environment promote learning?' She emphasised the need to make use of the collective learned wisdom of humanity.
Continuing her 'sermon' on colours, she said: 'Prisons in the United Kingdom are considering the use of pink uniforms for inmates because research has shown that pink as a colour, has a tranquil and calming effect.'

She noted that it will however be difficult to prescribe particular colours to enhance learning in the classroom since different colours will have different impacts on children with mental challenges or riotous students in a boys' school.

She therefore suggested that psychologists like those in the universities be used more to help with 'such little but very important things.

'Colours play a big role in education even though it requires little investments. It does to a large extent enhance the quality of one's thought,' she stated.

So next time you are choosing a colour, be it a dress for a social gathering or curtains for your bedroom, take note what colour you choose. You might never understand why you find yourself in a particular mood. Your choice of colour could do a lot for you!