“All things are rarely equal.”
Too many times, students complain that things are not equal. They need to learn that usually, nothing is equal. Unless we are all made the same with the same attributes and are carbon copies of each other, there is no way that anything can be equal.
What students need to discover is how to come to terms with things not being equal. Many times schools call this “leveling the playing field.”
This occurs a lot in the workplace. Picture someone who cleans windows. One person is 6 foot 5 inches and the other person is only 5 feet. Can they both do a good job? Yes, they can. The shorter person may have to use a ladder to get to the higher windows but they are both capable of getting the job accomplished.
Many times we shop for things by comparing prices. Advertising experts for certain items do not want you to compare things so they change how they share certain information. My husband says it is like comparing apples to oranges and is impossible to see if they are equivalent in attributes but different in price.
Too many students feel like they should be equal to everyone else. I want to impress on my students that everyone has various strengths which don’t make them equal but if they work together they can be stronger and better. My husband can assemble things without ever reading the directions and I have smaller fingers to get into tight spaces. Apart, things may not get assembled quickly or correctly but together, we can put something together and enjoy it faster.
We need to embrace each other’s differences and encourage each other to discover our strengths. Once we recognize that usually “equal” doesn’t exist, we can move forward and be more productive.
How do you teach your students about making things equal? Please share.
Photo by Erol Ahmed on Unsplash
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