Fair

Today we talked about being fair in our classroom. We specifically talked about what fair looks like in relation to our learning. 

If your child is still wearing his/her band aid, see if he/she can tell you what fair looks like in our classroom.

Today I asked each student to think of an injury either current or past that they had somewhere on their body. I told them that I was going to give them a band aid for it. Each student came up to me and showed me his/her injury. I put all of the band aids on each student on the same spot - on their arm.  After everyone had a band aid (and much confusion on their part), we talked about what had just happened.

I asked them if everyone got a band aid. Yes. So was that fair? Yes. Did where I put the band aid on help everyone? No. Was that fair? No. We talked about how in our classroom different kids are going to need different things throughout the year. Some kids might need more help in reading or in math. Some kids might need a different area to work in, some kids might not. I told them that as their teacher I want to do what is "fair" so that all students can learn the best that they can. That might look different sometimes. Just because I do one thing for one student and not another does not mean that I like some students better than others. It means that I am doing what is best for that student. So it's ok if things look different in the classroom for different students. Ask your child about the visual/picture we used with the three boys looking over the fence. It helped to illustrate this point.