The 6th stripe controversy

Most everyone knows by now I'm an English teacher in Korea. It's interesting because you often end up teaching things based on the way you were taught, rather than what you've experienced. Not that it's bad, but you often end up questioning things you thought simple and straightforward.

Take, for example, "the earth is round." It's right, but do I teach it because that's what I know or because that's what I was taught? It's just an example, but it's indicative of the thing that come up.

As with most other no-brainers, it's not a big deal, but generally speaking I don't like this teaching method. When it comes to history, for example, it's easier to accept what everybody else has said than come up with your own conclusions. Columbus was not a nice man, regardless of what pre-1964 textbooks say about him, but that reality rarely filters down to grade-school level history lessons, and that affects our perceptions. When you really look into it, it becomes hard to justify why we have a holiday named for him.

I found myself conflicted one day when I was teaching the English words for the colors of the rainbow. We all know there's seven, right? Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet -- hence the ROY G. BIV acronym. The problem was this -- what's "indigo"?

My first response to the inquisitive student was "it's half blue and half purple," but then I started thinking -- if it's half blue and half purple, then it's not really its own color -- it's the spot where the blue and the purple bands meet.

I immediately countered with this: then, by that argument, we'd have to eliminate orange and green from the list of colors, too. Ah, good point.

Well, not necessarily, I rebutted. Everyone knows what green (or 녹색) is; it's the color of grass. Everyone knows what orange (or 주황색) is; it's the color of an orange (duh). But ask someone what things are indigo-colored and I doubt they'll be able to some up with anything other than the supposèd 6th stripe of the rainbow.

I had myself there. If we're going to say indigo is a color of the rainbow, we darn well better have something to describe it -- something other than "it's that blue-purple blend area of the rainbow." What a lame-o decription that is! I felt ashamed for having explained it that way. Maybe ... just maybe ... there are only six colors of the rainbow....

This is a dangerous kind of belief, though -- everyone knows the earth is round, everyone knows all men are created equal, and everyone KNOWS there are seven colors in the rainbow! Only six colors in the rainbow? A person could get fired for teaching such heresy!

Having examined the issue, though, I'm afraid I can come to no other conclusion -- I now believe indigo should be removed from the official, seven-color list of rainbow colors. I simply can not, with clear conscience, teach anything else....