Students were scampering around the gym with a buzz of seeing their friends from over the weekend. They, of course, supposed to be lined up based on their grade/class or sitting at the couple tables in the corner eating their free garbage breakfast offered to them. 7:45 rolls around, and morning announcements about the character trait is to begin followed by the school pledge; a daily, grueling routine which rotates every week with different teachers. This month the character trait is Fairness, and it’s my turn. The last two weeks teachers talked about what fairness looks like with who can reach the candy and who gets the medicine or the cast. Well, I took a different approach.
“I wish I could tell you that the world will be fair to you because you are taught to be fair. It won’t be fair. You will get looked over for a job, for a school, for a team. How you react to the unfairness is a true measurement of one’s character than anything else in life.”
You could hear a pin drop. A teacher began to tear up. A week earlier the staff learned that there is a possibility that we will not have a job after the 30th of June due to changes in the management and reauthorization requirements based on leeway of changes in management. We were all experiencing the rawness of unfair.
“When you are experiencing troubling times, you must remember who you are. Remember to believe in yourself, even when others don’t. Remember your goals when the path is darkened. Remember to persevere because you are above the wrongs of others.”
We agreed on many levels that no matter what we can’t tell the students. We can’t tell them because the chance of a mass exodus causing our enrollment numbers to tank which will speed up the process of us all being in jeopardy. We can’t tell them because so many students we have all seen grow up from kindergarten to 8th grade, and we know how many have lost close loved ones, and these kids know us as a stable family. So we hold this information of ultimate uncertainty quietly while we go about our routines. We can’t tell them.
“There is nothing wrong about pointing out unfairness when you see it. But I caution you; sometimes our eyes can play tricks. Hold your emotions and use your mind and words. Find the truth of the matter, and reserve your emotions. Otherwise, if you lead with just emotions and blame, that unfairness will consume you, and just ruin you like a disease.”
We can’t tell them, because they will react with their emotions.
In my opinion, there are a lot of things that could be different about “school.” From curriculum to construction, there are a lot of things that could be different. But, if I had the opportunity to change one thing it would be the hierarchal competitive structure between schools, districts, states, teachers and even students. The entire formula is conducive to competition. Schools that score the best get more money. Teachers with higher performing student scores get higher paying salaries and bonuses. Students that score higher on assessments get into better schools. Districts that have increased growth receive more resources and funds, ultimately gaining more experienced candidates.
Is this the fairness that we should emphasize to our students? As we rigorously assess them to ever-changing assessments to pin them against one another. Survival of the fittest is fully endorsed by the higher-ups.
If we are a country where it is a right and a law for all children to attend education, why the discrepancies? Hypothetically speaking; what if we allocated budgets to schools based on solely on size. Large districts get more than small districts, not because they are better, but because they have more students. Furthermore, let’s just say that every magic dollar sign above each student is a clean 15-20 thousand, regardless of where they are located; rural, suburban or urban.
School A borders School B, and are in different districts. School A is receiving 18 thousand per student, and school B are receiving 8 thousand. You are literally stating that school B kids are worthless. If it’s about the kids (which I am getting tired of hearing as a counter-argument against fair funding of schools) then why the discrepancy in funds? School on the Eastside of Detroit should be receiving the same amount as schools in Silicon Valley.
Fairness is a false sense of reality that we are lead to believe we can achieve. We cannot achieve fairness ever, because my fairness may be different from your fairness, and who decides which is fair? Untimely this results in the loser of the fairness battle claiming unfairness, and we are back to the original statement. The entire notion of fairness is invalid, and the sooner we accept that there is no fairness the better.
Do not mistake my harshness as a bitter and dark perspective of our world we live in. We should aim for being kind, having mindfulness, being present, not wearing our hearts on our sleeves. We can focus on how to persevere, how to challenge ourselves to be better, and how to focus on what meaningful means to us as individuals.
“The world isn’t fair. And that’s OK. You know who you are, and never forget who you are. Always be true to yourself. Always.”