The Rollercoaster of Remediation

Ms. Jennifer Bradner's "The Rollercoaster of Remediation" obviously comes from a good heart, but everything in my 20 years of teaching (tenured and adjunct) tells me she's dead wrong. Renaming remedial courses so that they sound like "real" college courses is not going to soothe students, and it's not our job to soothe them. While I like Ms. Bradner's idea of telling students that they didn't get everything they needed from their high school classes, I usually suggest that their outrage be directed at the programs, classes, and institutions that have failed them. However, we also discuss their own responsibility for their learning. I have found that students in remedial classes usually work much harder and with more success than their cohorts in the standard freshman composition class, once their own responsibility for learning is offered to them. Worrying about offending these students implies that they are too stupid to notice if we call the classes something else. This is hardly a flattering or empowering view of them. Let's not succumb to EduSpeak. We offer such classes because college is no longer an exclusive institution. Colleges need money; they need students. Let's not have that need drive our educational standards down to a 1 billion served model. Instead, let's offer students remedial and developmental classes as a gift and a chance to take charge of their own learning.

    - Jeanie Murphy, Pierce College Puyallup, WA

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