Enrichment is a beautiful thing

We had set aside Fridays for remediation during school hours. We tried a few different ways, and students looked forward to Fridays–as do-nothing days. We handed out “invitation” tickets, let them sign up, signed them up ourselves, but still some wriggled away to the wrong sessions…or further. So last year, we switched to the daily built-in model. And we stuck with it this year.

It did not take long to discover that first year that there were students in our school who simply did not need remediation, and even a few who generally stayed ahead of the game and were left twiddling their thumbs. And so “remediation” became “Enrichment,” and we called on our non-academic skills to offer alternatives to entertain and delight the twiddlers while those who needed extra help could get it in a suitably small environment. The math teacher and I almost always have a full set of kids we hand pick for more help, but others tend to bide their time until AP testing time and have runaway hit Enrichments like Rock & Roll History. And even I am excited by our newest (chemistry!) teacher’s Clowning 101 Enrichment!

Instead of signing up every week, like in the olden days, Enrichment now lasts about a month and meets 3 days a week, keeping the shepherding manageable and “lost lambs” to a minimum. Granted, it can be a little harder to come up with an Enrichment that is worth doing for a month, but it works well for things like getting the school newsletter out and making sure that students really get it when they leave.

In the meantime, I have picked a full house of young ones for a variety of reasons for this next session:

• Some need me no more than a foot away to have the confidence/will power to get through an entire assignment
• Some need to be able to ask a question as soon as it arises so they have no more excuses to quit
• Some need materials that they can’t forget on the kitchen table
• Some just need a little time to catch their breaths, double check, and catch up to be solidly above water
• Some are right on the border of total mastery, so they know what it is to struggle to get it, which means they make EXCELLENT teachers for the others–plus they care about grades and understanding enough to put up with a month of me to be able to get to that A