Opinions

OPINION: ‘That’s not fair’ — and that’s OK

Prologue by Steve Carroll and Sarah Reynolds Westin:

A class of fourth grade students at Huffman Elementary have spent an hour every Friday morning during this school year drafting stories, developing theses and trying many styles of communication — from creative nonfiction and letter writing to oral storytelling. As their teacher and their literary arts volunteer, we coordinate these sessions and map out our lesson plans. The students started out quiet — maybe even skeptical. We were asking them to do more language arts work. Few spoke up, and the rest needed convincing. Over time, we accomplished that.

Each student has improved how they organize their thoughts, prepare their ideas, and deliver their final products — written or oral. Their stamina and effort have impressed us. We’ve had days where our hour session goes almost twice as long because the students are so engaged. Watching them learn how to formulate and articulate their perspectives is the most inspiring thing that we can imagine observing. In six months, we saw 27 children transform into competent communicators.

For the last unit, we took it up a notch and asked the students to evaluate fairness, an ever-applicable concept. We posed questions like, “What is fairness? Who gets to decide how to apply it? Is it OK to be unfair if more people are helped, or should everyone always get the same treatment? What should happen when concepts of fairness change?” The kids tackled them like pros and worked in definitions, dialogue and personal experiences. We were blown away by their insights on a topic that we adults face daily. Since our policies, funding and decisions must always balance fairness with equality, we wanted to share their collective essay with you to further the public conversation. Minus a few editorial tweaks, supplemental transitions and categorical arrangements, what follows is the 10-year-olds’ insights, practically verbatim.

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Our world debates what is fair, who makes the rules, and how fairness and rules should apply to people and our planet. Sometimes it feels way hard for us to know what fairness is. We get even more stumped since fairness seems a lot like equality, but they’re actually not the same. Fairness lets you treat things differently. Equality recognizes some things have the same value — and this must come first. When you realize fairness and equality are separate concepts that work together, you can see they are a two-way street. Let’s start with their definitions. Fairness is impartial treatment to all and lacks favoritism to any. Equality is the state of being equal — especially in status, rights and opportunities. You may want things to be fair (because, at the time, it feels good), but you shouldn’t simply get what you want. Equality must balance out fairness, which means life won’t always be fair. When things aren’t fair, usually more people are helped and treated special — and that means we favor equality, which is right.

Where does the concept of fairness came from? Humans refined it, but even monkeys use it. They give more food and protection to babies, because these little ones carry on their families. You see, everyone has unique needs. Sometimes valuing something equally means giving that thing more. Just like babies should get extra attention, the sick and poor should get extra care. Think about people or animals who are homeless. They need more love and support. Maybe it doesn’t seem fair, but it is best for everyone in the long run — including you.

Adults often say, “Life isn’t fair.” That statement is true, because life still isn’t equal for many people. Equal. Fair. Rights. Are these words the same or different? Figuring out the answer shouldn’t just be an intellectual exercise — we should take it seriously. For instance, some actions aren’t fair, like getting presents, or shouldn’t be fair, like being injured. What should be fair? Everyone receiving food, having freedom, and getting a good jury. What if someone is planning to commit a violent crime, should they be stopped before they hurt someone? Yes! Is that fair? No, but it helps more people. They lose their freedom because they lost our trust.

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It sounds strange to say, but without bad things happening, nothing could be good. Fairness can feel unpredictable, and sometimes it is. Are awards really fair? Should everyone get one?

Maybe you can’t understand why people make certain choices. For example, your friend has a cookie. She decides to share it with you, but she doesn’t split it equally and gives you the small piece. You might think, “That’s unfair!” But you have more than you started with — so your life got better. When you feel anger and jealousy without even realizing that, if life were completely fair, then everybody would be miserable, just remember: Unfairness is not all bad! Instead, we have our own special lives, which creates diversity in the world.

See? There are upsides to unfairness. Sometimes you get way more, and life becomes more interesting. You feel special and make special memories. When you experience good, unbalanced treatment, you may feel proud. These events happen more often as we grow into our independence — and that’s good, too! Extra independence means you earned more trust — even if more trust means more responsibilities, unlike the person above who lost our trust by planning to hurt others. When you’re doing more work, you may think, “This isn’t fair!” Try to be okay with that. Otherwise, you will always be unhappy. Consider Elon Musk. If life were fair, then everybody would be as wealthy as him. But many people would not want to work like Elon, because they didn’t earn their money — they got it for free and don’t appreciate it. Supply chains would crash due to unemployment. Even your local supermarket might close down. Isn’t it better for life to be unfair and still have food?

It’s hard when life isn’t fair. But when you look at it the right way, it can lift your mood. Truthfully, life is a lot better when it is not fair, even when it doesn’t seem that way. That probably means things are more equal and unique, and life becomes more colorful and exciting — maybe even more thrilling.

The members of Mr. Carroll’s fourth-grade class at Huffman Elementary are: Allison, Aksel, Avalyn, Axel, Brace, Conner, Cora, Daaskawaa, Elise, Elle, Jackson, Jeremiah, Kezia, Kianna, Kinley, Levi, Luke, Michael, Olivia, Paul, Pearl, Piper, Raven, Riley, Sean, William and Zoey. Steve Carroll is an elementary school teacher and Sarah Reynolds Westin is a writer; all of the authors live in Anchorage.

The views expressed here are the writer’s and are not necessarily endorsed by the Anchorage Daily News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)adn.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to letters@adn.com or click here to submit via any web browser. Read our full guidelines for letters and commentaries here.

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