Fairness Inquiry

Our first week back was a great success! We did an inquiry into  what it means to be a classroom learning community!

Day 1 

We played Musical chairs. 

Discussion:

Students were prompted to discuss how they would feel if this was how we decided on where to sit.

As a class we discussed this in terms of ‘fairness’. We completed a ‘Fairness is’ poster. The overall consensus seemed to be that they noticed that when there was a lack of choice as a learner, this was ‘NOT FAIR’.

Students were then asked to journal about their own needs as a learner, specific to where they sit. Most sentences centered around friendship and belonging.

Day 2 

We read, “It’s OK to be different” by Todd Parr. Then we had a classroom discussion around the book. 

We then created this poster as a class, with students brainstorming around physical spaces and learning. Some prompts included: What do I need to learn? What helps me? How do I learn? Who do I learn with? 

Day 3

We read the book Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes.

Students generated a discussion around belonging, friendship, acceptance. We created a poster that prompted words that described how Chrysanthemum felt about herself before going to school, and then how she felt afterwards.

Day 4

Students were shown our ‘Fairness is’ poster.  Discussion, what does it mean?

Students were then asked to make a responsible decision around their own learning and pick a suitable seat/ table group.

We created a seating map. Students wrote reflectively in their journals about how they felt about their new spot in terms of their learning needs as individuals and considering fairness.