Essay: Making Fairness Happen
There’s a line in Hairspray (2007) where the father (Christopher Walken) says to his daughter,
Tracy (Nikki Blonsky), “Fairness doesn’t just happen – you gotta make it happen – so get to
work!”
Assignment Overview
Becoming a professional in education requires you to work with every student. Your
commitment to diversity is commendable and an important pre-requisite to success in the field.
Whether you intend to become a teacher, counselor, psychologist, school nurse, or administrator
each of you will examine your personal beliefs about many aspects of difference in our
extraordinary state. In other coursework you will consider issues related to race, ethnicity,
language, poverty, gender, and sexual orientation in great depth. In this course, our focus is
students who have disabilities.
As a new professional working in education, you will soon find yourself in situations that require
you to work with students who have disabilities on a regular basis. You need to be ready respond
to those situations from an informed, caring, and just perspective.
Assignment Goals
The purpose in this essay is for you to explore and describe your perspective on fairness and
proposed action on behalf of students who have disabilities.
Essay Requirements
Define and briefly describe your thoughts and ideas about fairness for students with disabilities.
Consider fairness as a concept/idea in educational settings. (15 pts.)
Define and briefly describe what you will do to promote fairness for students with disabilities.
How will you make fairness happen? (15 pts.)
Assignment Guidelines
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Minimum length – 2 pages, 1.5 spacing
Maximum length – 3 pages, 1.5
Accuracy in spelling, grammar, and punctuation are expected
Making Fairness Happen
Life isn’t fair. If it was the children wouldn’t have diseases, disabilities; children wouldn’t live in poverty
or go to bed hungry; they would have access to clean, water, health care and education. Many children
across the world will never have the opportunity to go to school. They are locked in the deprivations of
child labor. The International Labor Organization estimates that 75 million children across the world
lack primary schooling due to child labor. However, here in the US, just because life isn’t fair doesn’t
mean that fairness can’t be implemented.
Not only is life unfair, it’s also unequal. Everyone isn’t the same. Everyone in a classroom isn’t equal.
Education isn’t about equity. It can’t be about equity since nobody is the same. Education is about
equity. We can’t treat everyone the same if we are all not the same. We execute equity in dealing
with students. Students can understand and learn based on instruction and conditions unique to them;
based on their strengths and weaknesses.
Paradoxically, we’re unique, just like everyone else.
Fairness has to do with equity rather than equality. That is, you get what you need, when you need it
rather than everyone getting the same thing at the same time.
Distinguish between the behavior and the person exhibiting the behavior. Build the self efficiency by
focusing what is needed.
Work for responsibility, motivation and respect not obedience, compliance and fear.
Page 33 Why Didn’t I learn this in College? Paula Rutherford.