William Marvel: Remedial Graduate School

The use of "remedial" as an educational term is about a century old. It first appeared in the title of a book published in 1924, but only in the 1970s did it come into common usage in the teaching profession. In 1977, in an article on the adverse impact of overcrowded classrooms, an Irish newspaper reported on proposals to limit class sizes to "no more than 35 students," and to hire more "remedial teachers."

I had initially encountered "remedial" in that sense a couple of years earlier. As a late-blooming college student, I found myself expected to take a surprisingly basic English course that had recently been mandated for all incoming freshmen. After reading the course description, I told my assigned advisor that I had had all of that as a sophomore and junior in high school. Yes, he said, that was supposed to be true with anyone who graduated from high school, but colleges had been finding widespread shortcomings in English among entering classes. "Remedial" instruction had therefore been deemed necessary to compensate for those deficiencies.