Friday, February 24, 2017

Fair vs Equal

Every day after lunch, we have a fruit or vegetable snack and a ponder. We sometimes watch a video, read a story, or have a mat chat about something that makes us stop, think and wonder.

On Friday I put the below picture up on the whiteboard and people shared their ideas about what they saw. It was almost unanimous that the picture on the side was 'not fair'. Everyone agreed it wasn't fair because they couldn't all see the game happening. People noticed how it made the shortest person feel; they looked sad, they weren't having fun, they were missing out.

Team 16 are a bunch of thinkers alright - look at their ideas:

Next, we talked about how this could apply in the classroom. We are SO lucky to be at a school like Silverdale Normal School where there are people from all different places in one spot. We are all different and we all need different things to be successful. Some people eat lots and lots of lunch, some people eat it all at morning tea and not much later. Some people 
use lunch time to have quiet time and relax, some people have to run around and be loud and crazy in the breaks. When we are learning about Maths, some people need quiet, others need to talk, or watch, or make mistakes - and then they can do something completely different when we are learning about writing. We are all different learners with different needs.

My job, as the teacher, is to make sure every beautiful person in our class gets what they need to 'see over the fence' - to learn.

So sometimes we might see people sitting in a particular spot, or getting a bit more help, or time to do things differently, or just extra time to eat. But we are learning to remember, it's about making sure our classroom is a fair place where everyone can learn - and that doesn't mean things are always equal.

4 comments:

Michael Harrop said...

I LOVE this Room 16! Not everyone needs the same things to be successful learners. When ever I visit room 16 I always see different people choosing different ways and spaces to further their learning. What a great place to be!

Unknown said...

I've seen this one before - equity vs equality - great thing to teach kids!! Yay, Room 16 is on the app! Thanks Mr Harrop!

Michael Harrop said...

An important class like this needs to be on the app! Thanks for bringing this to my attention Mrs D!

Nicki @ Sew Addictive said...

I love this!!! Yes Rach it's great to see rm 16 is finally on the ap