Thinking Freely Volume 2 Issue 3
Remediation -> Enrichment
Which has a better remedy, a doctor who gives you a painkiller to mask your pain or a doctor who removes the cause of your pain and thus enriches your future? Which is better, math remediation that gets you through the next test or math remediation that builds foundational math understandings and thus prepares you for all future math activities?
So much of math remediation is in the “skill and drill” format which hammers away at an immediate problem until the student “gets it”. But how long does the student retain it? Learning one discrete topic after another without grasping relationships does not usually lead to depth of understanding. Older students want to understand “why” things happen. They learn best when they can grasp the logic in a situation. If they can see how things fit together they can recall them. And when you satisfy these needs you are not only giving them a base upon which to build, you are effectively enriching their mathematical knowledge.
When remediating:
