Fairness in Schools

          Fairness in schooling is a concept that we continuously seem to be missing the mark on.  Many people feel that not getting the same exact treatment as someone else is just unfair.  It is natural for young children to see that fair means the same but we as educators and parents have to show them otherwise.  Just recently I observed an incident where a student saw unequal as unfair.  I was in a team taught class where I was substituting for the special education teacher while the general education English teacher was conducting the lesson.  The lesson was meant to be for the teacher to tell a story called “The Giving Tree” and the students were to do a writing assignment afterward.  Several students were laughing during the reading so the teacher told the class that instead of doing the more fun activity they were going to have to write a graded essay on respect.  Many students moaned and groaned but got to writing soon after.  One of the special education students seemed to just shut down.  He was visually upset that he missed out on the story and refused to write.  The teacher offered him the opportunity to sit at the computer and have the story read to him through YouTube.   

            As a teacher I understood that this teacher knows this student well and realized that punishing him because he was not going to write because of different emotions was not fair.  This student needed something different in order for him to get confidence back to perform in the classroom.  However, as the teacher was doing this for the particular student I heard another student say to her friend “that’s special treatment”.  This completely goes back to the idea that people see sameness as fairness.  Had this been my own class and I heard a student say this I would have used the opportunity to discuss this issue of fair not always being the same.  An even better idea to be proactive and prevent an incident like this would be to talk to students in the beginning of the year of some students needing accommodations that others may not need.          

           Like Malcolm Gladwell discusses in his lecture on the pursuit of perfect Pepsi/sauce/pickles, we need to have an understanding of variability and we need to address these differences in people.  Whether a student be diverse because of language, ability, social class, we have to realize these differences and find ways to reach these students.  In Jackson and Cooper’s reading, they say that teacher-student relationships are vital.  I think before we can truly help our students to succeed, we need to build a relationship with them that involves respect and trust.  It is hard to help students if they do not open up to you and tell you what their true concerns are.  In order to get students to open up in the classroom, it is essential for a teacher to build a good rapport with his/her students and make them feel safe and comfortable.  Once we know more about these students we can find ways to get them to become better learners and people.