Sameness as fairness

I thought it was very interesting that we had so many readings that each viewed "sameness as fairness" in our education system so differently. The first reading by Gutierrez and Purcell-Gates talked about how all students should be treated the same.  Everyone should be taught the same way and receive the same help.  In theory, maybe this seems good, all students are receiving the same amount of help and guidance, but in practice...no two students are the same and no two students learn the same.  That means that by just presenting things in one uniform way, not all students are going to understand and catch on.  This easily was explained in the video speech by Malcolm Gladwell about Howard Moskowitz.  Moskowitz was on the pursuit for the perfect pickle/Pepsi/Ragu b ut quickly realized that there was no such thing and that not everyone liked the same things, therefore, a group of people can't really be treated as one uniform mass.  This easily applied to teaching and the ideas that no two of our students are the same, therefore they cannot all be taught the same way.

The next reading was by Ladson-Billings and Carter, they discussed the idea that in order to achieve "sameness as fairness" in education we need to treat education the same not our students.  What I mean by this is, we cannot make the assumption that all of our students are the same, because they are not.  But we need to treat the way that we educate the same, and keep that uniform.  We need to understand that each child is capable of learning and most of them WANT to learn...we just need to figure out ways to present information to ensure that they are actually learning.

After doing all these readings, I am a firm believer that we need to create "fairness" in our education by allowing each child an equal chance and providing support where it is needed.  If that means presenting information a ton of different ways, making the same worksheet many different ways, or creating many different options for an assignment so that each student has the opportunity to understand things and do the best work in a way that easily relates to them, then that is what had to be done.  All students need to be given a fair chance to perform their best.  I think "fairness" takes a lot of work, and maybe that is why it is sometimes overlooked, but I think that to be sure that all students have an equal chance and are given the tools to succeed, that is what needs to happen.