How can we teach the concept of fairness to students? It’s hard for adults to understand sometimes, too. Michelle Hunt, an elementary school teacher, shared the following activity she did with her students.
“When I was student teaching in third grade, there was a major epidemic of claiming that things in the class weren’t “fair”. As any of you who are teachers or have kids of your own know, the kiddos think that it’s just not fair if they don’t get the best of everything! I sa
w this idea in various posts on Pinterest and decided to try it out! I had the students sit in a circle on the rug, close their eyes, and imagine that they had an injury somewhere on their body. I received several “but why?”s and curious glances, but they were good sports and went along with it. I then called each student up to the rocking chair one at a time and asked them where their pretend injury was. After each student answered, I placed a band-aid on the back of their hand without explanation. One student said she had a broken arm…and she got a band-aid on her hand. One boy said he had a “terrible horrible cut” on his leg….he got a band-aid on his hand. The kiddos all whispered to each other about what was happening, but never asked a question.
After the last student received his band-aid and sat down, a little girl said “Miss Hunt, how come I said my knee had a bruise but you didn’t put the band-aid there? I wanted it on my knee! This just isn’t fair!” DING DING DING! That’s exactly what I was hoping for! I responded, “but why isn’t it fair? Everyone got a band-aid didn’t they?” A boy said, “Well YEAH, but what good is it if it’s not where I needed it?” This activity worked out so much better than I expected! We then launched into a long discussion about what fair truly means. One student summed it up best when she said “So maybe fair isn’t when everyone gets the same thing…it’s when everyone gets just what they need!””
