The Silicon Classroom — Week 4

Can everyone say interactive, “Interactive!” Week four presented itself with a demonstration of challenging and hard to understand topics like comparing equity and equality. Right at the beginning of class we were all asked to take a short “IQ” test- granted none of the questions seemed to be testing intelligence, rather we later learned that it was testing how well our knowledge of American culture was. Based of the scores of these tests we were split into three groups. All three groups were asked to create a lesson plan that would teach children multiplication. The catch was the highest scoring group had virtually unlimited resources: markers, whiteboards, paper, scissors, basically anything reasonable. The second group was given less resources, only a whiteboard. And, the third and lowest scoring group was given nothing.

Then the planning started. We had around 15–20 minutes to create a lesson plan, but things are never that simple. Within the first few minutes one member of the third group was asked to leave the group to attend a meeting in which he helped try to resolve an issue with a disruptive student. A few minutes later another member was asked to leave from the second group. By the end of the activity the lowest scoring group only had one member, the second group two members, and the first group all members.

After designing, we shared our lesson plans. One by one each group shared, and the purpose of this exercise was known to us. We saw through this example how confusing equity can be in education.

Take for example, how schools receive funds from housing taxes. So, the better the neighborhood the more money a school gets. The converse, the poorer a neighborhood, the less funding a school gets. Is this equitable?

A great example was brought up. There are three men standing behind a fence, trying to look in on a baseball game. One short, one tall, and one medium. Only the tall man can see over the fence.

• Is it equitable if we give all three men one box to stand on?
• or is it equitable if we give the short and medium guys enough boxes to be even with the tall guy.