Learning and Teaching

Year 3 and 4 community - Fair or Unfair

This term, the Year 3 and 4 community have been learning about local government and what it means to be a good citizen. They have unpacked what rules and laws are and how they affect different people. Last week, I was lucky enough to participate in a live Google Meet session where we looked at what is fair, and what is unfair?

This was an introduction to thinking ethically. When we think ethically, we need to consider different points of view and dialogue with others to understand their thinking. We did this throughout our session. The children were initially asked what fair means and what are some examples. The children were very keen to share as they had all experienced something fair. Many were able to explain how things can be unfair as well.

We then looked at two pictures and answered the questions - Is everyone being treated equally in this picture? Is this fair? Why or why not? for both questions. There was lots of discussion about this. Some felt it was fair whereas others felt it wasn’t. Some of the responses were that the little girl couldn’t see over the fence as she was too little so that wasn’t fair; it was fair as the boxes were all the same so they had the same advantage.

When all the children could see over the fence, some children in the community felt that it was more fair than before as they all could see the same thing. What was important in this discussion was that the Year 3 and 4 community were listening to each other and building on the ideas of others and we discovered a bigger question to ask - Does fair always mean equal?