Fair. The Merriam-Webster on-line dictionary defines the word fair as treating people in such a way that does not favor one person over another.
The issue of fairness has been in many of the recent headlines.
Are blacks and other minorities treated fairly by law enforcement? Was the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) unfair in the handing down of sanctions to Penn State compared to issues at other universities? Is the National Football League (NFL) fair in how it has addressed criminal complaints against players?
I have had a lifelong hypersensitivity to fair treatment. I am, after all, a middle child.
I was grading papers last week and noted that several students did not follow the instructions on an assignment that is worth 20 percent of the course semester grade. The assignment involves interaction with community agencies so I set the bar pretty high on professionalism, including deadlines for the students to meet with and get signatures of approval for their projects from the representatives at those agencies.
I have learned over the years that, inevitably, there will be students who procrastinate and will end up on the agency’s doorstep, under wire of the deadline. In past semesters, students have occasionally been demanding and disruptive of on-going agency activities when they show up on the due date saying “you have to sign my proposal today.”
Despite covering it in class, giving them written instructions which are also available on-line, sending reminder emails and including the deadlines on the semester calendar, several students each semester have their overall grade negatively impacted.
It is sometimes surprising how quickly they turn their anger to me and insist that I’m not being fair.
Like course syllabi which are now pages long and include every possible “what if” situation spelled out, the assignment description for this project has evolved from one page to four pages in the years that I have been teaching this class. The same students who don’t follow directions are often those who also try to find the technicality that wasn’t covered and use it to their advantage.
I give the kids who set up appointments to meet with me to discuss my “unfair” decision kudos for being professional but have learned that they often can’t answer the questions that I pose.
Why should the standards be different for you than they are for other students?
What do I tell the other students who also dropped the ball? Should I go back and award all of them the full points as well?
Last, and most important, do you believe that your effort in this assignment is the same as the student who followed the directions and was diligent in his or her work? What do I say to that student?
It’s hard not to smile when they ask “Do you have to tell them?”
Being fair means treating everyone equally. When we make exceptions, we immediately set up a situation that favors one person over the other.
Much has been written about privilege and special opportunities related to many of the situations that we are seeing in the news. People get angry and frustrated when they perceive that others are given an unfair advantage on the basis of race or gender or ability/disability or other characteristic. Unfair treatment, whether real or perceived, can lead to anger and resentment and backlash. Those in charge or those who hold the power can minimize that negative energy by being fair.
My faith in humanity was restored as I handed back papers. Two students, both of whom are very strong and who showed leadership in the class (which is ironically a leadership class), dropped the ball on this assignment. Instead of anger and finger pointing at me, they said “I waited to the last minute” and “It sucks but it was my goof.” It was refreshing. No anger. No nasty email. No threat of parents or of going over my head. They both seemed to understand the many learning objectives I’m trying to teach with this assignment. (I suspect the others will let me know how they feel about the decision in course evaluations.)
Being fair in parenting does not always mean that we treat our kids exactly the same. It does, however, mean that we treat them equally. Our kids didn’t get the exact same things at Christmas or on their birthdays because they wanted or needed different things and their ages or what was going on with each at the time suggested the need for individual decisions. Despite those differences, we invested the same amount on each one – financially as well as emotionally. We tried to be fair.
I asked a student last week who was upset about his grade how he would feel if, on the basis of some arbitrary excuse or because of favoritism or on a whim, I added 30 points to another student’s exam score but didn’t offer him the same opportunity. He wouldn’t have to know about it right? What would it say about the class, about me or about the integrity of the grades?
He admitted that would be unfair.
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