Every year, students across the nation scour their local Staples and Target to find school supplies for the year to come. They grab pens, erasers, markers and, of course, class folders and notebooks. Students commonly match their folders and notebooks to the intended subjects by the perceived color of the subject—for example, blue for math, red for English or green for science. The question here is, which color belongs to which subject? And will the debate ever be settled? Now, before getting into the thick of it, the debate’s science must be explored.
The association between color and school subjects is a psychological and social phenomenon that stems from many factors, including early childhood conditioning, emotional associations and simple color theory. While some may associate colors because that was the association made during their early years of school, others may associate certain objects with certain colors and subjects. There is even a medical condition called synesthesia, which affects 4.4% of people, according to the American Psychological Association. The effects of synesthesia are the specific association of color to specified objects, words and/or sounds.
Even with the science behind it, the debate over what color classes are has been around for a while. The biggest debate is on the core classes: math, English, science and history. Here are our positions.
Nimrie’s Position:
The answer is clear: math is blue, English is purple, science is black and history is green. First, I base all of my classes on colors that I like. English is purple for me because English is my favorite subject, and of all the colors that I chose, purple represents this the most. I have no rhyme or reason as to why math is blue for me, but math has always felt like a blue folder. This might be because math is my second-favorite subject, and blue is close to purple. Science is black because with all of the experiments and extra things involved in that class, I don’t want it to show on my folder. Black is the best way to hide this. Finally, history is green because I signify history with geography, and when I think of geography, green is the first color that comes to mind. That is why I chose blue to represent math, purple to represent English, black to represent science and green to represent history.
Gavin’s Position:
Contrary to popular opinion, science is obviously blue, while English is yellow. All the while, math is teal, and history is red. My reasoning is quite simple: English reminds me of the slight yellow tint to the pages of an old novel. As for science, blue is the color of many tests, such as the litmus test for pH, and the color of many stains on a sample slide. Blue is simply the color used in the sciences; it represents science for me. The blood of enemies and the burning of fire make history obviously red. Throughout my learning of history, the talk of death and fire was always present, and the color of such things is red, making red an easy choice. The answer as to why math is teal is quite simple: that is the color my second-grade teacher made it. I never distinctly determined a color for math, so after she made it teal, I simply followed suit, and it has continued to this day.
This debate will never be settled, as every person has different reasons for why they have a certain color for each class. Because of this, generations to come will be able to have the same debates as the ones before them. That leaves the question: what colors do you associate with classes?
