It's not fair!

"So here's the deal. If 90% of the class or more gets in their homework by Friday, the last three weeks of school we will do this really cool project where we write and bind our own books. If not, seeing as I didn't get the homework, and can't be sure of your mastery of this skill, I'll have to do a complete, 3 week, essay unit in which case the class will write aprox 15-20 essays at 10 points a piece."

"But Miss X, what if 89% of the class gets their homework in, will you still make us all do the essays."

"Yes, no question. I've set the bar, it's 90%, no exceptions."

"But that's not fair!"

The whole class went deathly quiet and many students put their heads down on their desks, already mourning this poor boy being charred to death with my laser beam eye rays of death.

"What did you say?"

"That's not fair." Said the poor boy, carelessly walking into the pit.

"Define fair for me, please."

"Well, um, fair, um means that um, you get what you deserve."

"Ah, well, then seeing as these assignments were actually due last week, and I'm giving you extra time, you don't deserve this chance at all. So, essay unit everyone?"

"Wait, but you said... This isn't f...." The words were drowned out by the four boys that tackled the kid to shut him up before things got worse.

I hate that phrase, "It's not fair." People use it to mean it's not what they want. Even if life was fair, which it isn't, we rarely get what we deserve. Students usually get much more. I imagine this young man was absent the first week of school when I warned the class about telling me something wasn't fair.

When I was a teen, that was always the point when I lost the argument with Dad, when I said, "but that's not fair." Dad would ask for me to define fair. I kept thinking I was getting the definition wrong and that with the right definition I would win the argument. The problem was even with the right definition you still loose. Because in the end Life is never fair. What I always missed, as did this young man today is that often, that's a good thing.

Also, on a teacher's note, if 89% had it in by Friday, I would probably move the deadline back one more day as an effort was being made, but seeing as I should expect 100% of homework turned in, if I backed down from the 90% to 89% what was to stop the slide to 88% all the way down to 50% which was what we already had to begin with. Kids don't get that in the real world, there are not always percents, more like pass or fail and the cut off is that sharp. It is often one of the most frustrating things about life. It almost makes me think, dare I say it,

"That's not fair!"