Student Response: Politically Correct: Mike Rose’s “The Politics of Remediation”

Jason Custer

When discussing the issues with the American public school system, sometimes the hardest question to ask is “where to begin?” In his piece “The Politics of Remediation,” Mike Rose pulls our attention to something worth considering: the English curriculum and how it relates to students considered to be “remedial.” Rose calls the curriculum into question using his experience as a teacher of what are considered remedial, illiterate, and troubled students. He argues that perhaps it’s not entirely the fault of the students that they are not and have not been reached properly. Rose points to “grammatical analysis,” the cornerstone of the school’s curriculum which pits students against hundreds of pages requiring them identify subjects, nouns, conjugate, and dissect sentences, as one of the main culprits and goes on to state that it has “drained all the life” out of literacy. I agree with Rose’s analysis of the curriculum, and disagree with the labeling of the children in his course as “remedial” considering the abilities they exhibit.

There was nothing but a table, a series of “intimidating” words and a barrage of scattered pictures which in time would turn out to be a dual lesson for Mike Rose and his students. As part of his curriculum Rose used simple tools and exercises such as these to teach his remedial students, leading to relative success. Each student chose a picture to match up with their word and created a story to tie them together. As demonstrated by “Rodrigo’s Macabre Story,” and Delores’ lampoon of a bully, the children effectively participated in the exercise. Though Rose is willing to admit his curriculum’s faults (the limited time span and being “self-enclosed”), he sees through that to a more notable point: the writing of the children in his class was “not jibing with the various assessments Sof their ability.” In short, these children were labeled “remedial,” a label they clearly defy with their ability to pull together a story from an advanced word and a picture, forcing one to ponder why they were labeled as such. Simply put, the curriculum is to blame.

The English curriculum Rose was up against consisted of what he considers “grammatical analysis,” and little else. In no way did the curriculum explore the relatively open terrain of literacy and the underlying point of English: “conveying something meaningful, communicating information, creating narratives,” and so much more. The children labeled remedial also fit into the category of “illiterate” according to the school’s system, but how much sense does it make that Rodrigo can tie together a picture of a horrified man shielding his eyes, the word macabre, and an amusing anecdote regarding a man who is terrified to discover the girl he was approaching is in fact hideously ugly, but yet, he is branded as illiterate? These kids clearly have the capacity and ability to comprehend the heart of literature, and while their lack of ability to piece it together properly is a noteworthy flaw, it makes them no less literate than their peers. The English curriculum and its use of grammatical analysis pushes students that are otherwise competent and literate into being considered inferior on the grounds that they cannot dissect the language satisfactorily, neglecting their ability to use it properly.

The children who were given the not so favorable labels of “remedial” and “illiterate” are further insulted by their realities when being tagged as “troubled” by the school system and placed in Rose’s class. Sure, students like Casey have a rough home life featuring TV dinners for Thanksgiving, but even Casey can joke about it: “But she gave us two apiece… after all, it was Thanksgiving.” The home lives of these kids also factor into the inadequacies of the school’s curriculum. Rose used his personal curriculum to unleash the creativity of his students, bringing forth their interests and life experiences, whereas the school’s English curriculum did nothing with these factors, only caring about whether or not a student could identify a noun. This further inhibited students for whom English was not a first language. If a student has trouble with the language to begin with, surely they would struggle to pick it apart with a fine toothed comb. Is it still fair then to label them inferior, as the curriculum does? I think not. How better to speak to these children than to draw from their life experiences, and perhaps like Casey, learn to laugh and perhaps grow from them?

Much like Mike Rose, I believe that literacy consists of more than mere verbal skills and grammar. Surely these are important aspects, but not necessarily a crux. Understanding the thoughts and ideas behind it are far more important. Being able to identify a noun and verb is useless if they cannot come together and do something worthy of being noticed. The school’s version of English curriculum, as Rose states, is the “dry dismembering of language- not alive, not communicative at all.” English is meant to draw from creativity and experience and produce something significant, and these kids have the ability to do so. Just because they can’t fit into the school’s definition of “literate” does not mean that they deserve to be considered remedial and inferior. Students like these need only to be given a hint of extra attention and the same opportunities as their peers. If with minimal prodding Mike Rose can get these kids to exceed their remedial status, then logic would dictate that changing the curriculum would likewise change the outcome for these kids and others like them that are victims of a flawed school curriculum.