Fairness in the classroom is a difficult, but necessary, topic for discussion. The ideas of impartiality and equality are deeply ingrained in the minds of young students and the revelation of the falseness of these ideas is hard to receive. I believe fairness to be the treatment of all students equally, in accordance with their specific needs. It is a lofty belief and whether many or few hold it, it is certainly not held by all.
Either as a result of belief or biology, humans behave differently from each other. At times, these differences are large and, at times, they are small. Regardless, the various behaviors we exhibit are the evidence for the inconsistency of moral beliefs in our world. Does this inconsistency in the world warrant the teaching of a different kind of fairness? Some people work their entire lives to own their own home only to see it all wash away in the fury of Mother Nature. Bill Gates says, "Life isn'’t fair, get used to." Is this something our students should be sheltered from or taught openly? Is Bill Gates a good role model? Can we overcome the natural world?
The good, or bad, news is that educating forces are already at work in our classrooms. Humans have an incredible ability to teach themselves and shouldn't those forces be harnessed? Rather than setting up mini moral utopias, we might consider preparing our students for the kind of inconsistencies they will inevitably encounter. Will we do our students a disservice by attempting to convince them otherwise?
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5 comments:
are you sure Bill said that??
clearly, the world is not fair and i think if you are human which i beleive yo are you can try as hard as you can to be fair to everybody in your class room. this won't work for the imperfection in us. so you will be striving for fairness, most of the students will see that except for the students that are being treated unfairly, in an other instance the ones that were being treated unfairly will be treated fairly. so through your strivings everybody will learn about the real world. theres no use shielding the younger generations from the real world, this would be a great diservice
ha, you're right dave, but all's well.
http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/b/billgatesspeech.htm
They learn that naturally whenever the teachers have to discipline or pick.
Keep in mind that the theory is to treat everyone equally according to there needs ... and some need more discipline than others. To the children involved this many seem unfair, but you are the professional with the experience which gives you the right to judge their individual needs.
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