Not Fair. You're Picking on Me

Timothy, a seventh grader, is in trouble with the teacher. He’s talking while his history teacher is instructing.  The teacher pauses for a second and makes eye contact with him.  Timothy stops talking for a minute, then begins whispering again to the girl in front of him. The teacher pauses, looks at him and says, “Timothy, stop talking.” A few minutes later, Timothy is talking to the girl again. The teacher sends Timothy to a seat in the corner of the room. As Timothy ambles his way to the desk in the corner he says, loud enough for the teacher to hear, “This isn’t fair. Carlos talks more than me. You’re picking on me.”

The dilemma illustrated in this anecdote plagues every teacher and parent. What is fairness? What is justice?

There is the possibility that Timothy is right. The teacher may treat some students more favorably than others. If the teacher has favorites, if he has not established an understanding of “fairness” as it applies in the classroom, then the teacher has a problem. Providing justice is more than a momentary problem related to a couple of students. Failure to provide justice creates an ongoing problem that will interfere with the teacher’s authority and the students’ opportunity to learn.

But Timothy is likely wrong to claim he is being treated unfairly.  There are probably circumstances he is unwilling or unable to acknowledge; and therein lies the crux of problem for all.  We struggle to explain or understand justice.

Piaget said that young children are mostly concrete thinkers who understand fairness in a way that is different from adults.  From a young child’s point of view, the one who accidentally spills a carton of milk is in more trouble than one who spills a small glass of milk. The size of the mess determines the size of the wrong. A wiser adult sees it differently.

A young child is more likely to grant an adult the authority to establish justice. If a parent or teacher says a wrong has been committed and a punishment is necessary, a young child is more likely to accept the judgment than an adolescent. A middle school student’s sense of justice is closer to an adult view, but still varies in some important ways. Middle schoolers are likely connect fairness to equality – equal treatment for all. Adolescent also are more susceptible to group norms of justice. Membership in social groups is often determined by standards of dress, appearance and behavior. Adolescent who are excluded from a particular group feel that life is not fair.  It’s a hard lesson, unpleasant at the least. Life isn’t always fair.

Good teachers strive for fairness and can usually achieve it, at least within the walls of their classrooms. They provide a model of fairness and help students move beyond a concrete view of fairness and beyond the reliance on social norms to determine who is in or out or who has power or not. Fairness has to be achieved by the whole classroom community. If the teacher is sole arbiter of justice, then the scales of justice will often be unbalanced.

Let’s go back to the problem of Timothy who thinks he’s being picked on. The fact that the teacher warned him twice doesn’t give him much room to claim unfairness. The teacher should not interrupt instruction to deliver a lecture to Timothy about fairness. It wouldn’t be fair to other students. And, Timothy might be trying to provoke a confrontation that is going to be more disruptive.

If I were Timothy’s teacher, I would talk to him at the end of class. Maybe it would go like this:

Me: Timothy, I’m disappointed in your behavior today. Your talking was interfering with the lesson.

Timothy: But Carlos . . .

Me: Stop. This is about your talking. It is not about Carlos.

Timothy: But it’s not fair.

Me: It’s not fair when your talking prevents other students from learning. I know you are capable of understanding that. This conversation is about your behavior today. I expect better from you. When I pause while I’m teaching and make eye contact with you, it’s all about learning social studies. I’m doing it for you and everyone else. Do you understand what I mean?

Timothy looks down and is silent.  I bend down, make eye contact and raise my eyebrows.

Timothy: Okay.

Me: Thanks, I’ll see you tomorrow.

The classroom is a small space where a teacher can be authoritative and fair and can teach justice as well as the academic curriculum. We can teach students the relationship between classroom rules and ethics, but it cannot be done in a day and we cannot rely on authority alone. We need to bring content and activities to the classroom that help students see the room as their room – a safe place where home, neighborhood and cultural experiences are valued. Elliot Wigginton sent his high school students into their neighborhoods to collect oral histories about families and communities. Those stories became the content for their reading and writing. (Read about it at The Foxfire Fund.) Wigginton gave us a good lesson on teaching reading, writing, history and justice. 

We should not preach responsibility to our students. We should give responsibility by making students our assistants and teaching them to teach others. There are many ways to promote justice in the classroom. Maintaining fairness in the classroom is not easy, but it is possible.