The fairest teacher of them all

THE FAIREST TEACHER OF THEM ALL is a story I wrote to explore some questions about equal treatment and fairness that interest young people. I've attached the story with ideas for follow-up activities and some thoughts on what to expect students to come up with. I've also attached some ready-made cards for you to use in a starter activity about about preferential treatment of pupils by teachers. It seems to lead well into the story. If you want to read the story on its own first, here is it.

The fairest teacher of them all

By Jason Buckley

Albert worked in the city, earning good money.

But as he walked from his first-class train compartment to work, he noticed there were people in London who had very little money at all, because they were sitting on the streets asking him for some of his.

Sometimes he felt guilty about having so much when they had so little. So he sometimes gave them a few coins.

Albert's job was to invest the money of rich customers to help make them even richer. Sometimes he felt it was unfair that they were incredibly rich when he was just comfortable.

So he sometimes overcharged them, knowing they had so much money they wouldn't notice. One day, Albert decided he was fed up with the whole business of people being so unequal. He was going to get a job where you could make a difference to that.

He went back to university and trained to become a teacher. And when he started teaching, and came to your school, he was determined that he was going to treat all of you equally. So he made sure he learned all your names at the same time ... the brightest, the naughtiest and the quietest.

He smiled at all of you the same when he saw you around the school. He made the same effort to get to know each of you.

He spent the same time helping each of you with your work.

Every time any of you answered a question, he said the same thing: 'Well done, that's excellent.'

He made sure he set you all the same work ... and gave you all the same time to do it. Whenever someone did something wrong, he set you all the same detention.

Whenever you did some tests, he gave you all the same grades.

At parents evening, he said the same things about all of you.

And at the end of the year, he gave every single one of you the same report. Albert was pretty pleased that he'd done such a good job of treating all his students equally.

So he was upset and puzzled when every single one of you said, in the same angry way, the same thing, 'It's not fair, you treat us all the ........... '

© Jason Buckley 2009