Last Tuesday I walked to class like every other student around me, I arrived at the classroom and sat down at a table. This was my first class with this lecturer and I was excited to understand more about the topic; values.
Once everyone arrived we were instructed to make something from our resource pack that a new student could use for university. We opened the pack and inside there was one sheet of paper, a pen, a pencil, some blue tack, some elastic bands, a few paper clips and two post-it-notes. The group looked at each other and wondered what could be made with such limited resources. We began to look around the room and seen that every other group had much more than us in their pack, but none the less we carried on and began assembling a pencil case from our resources.
We had to present our idea to the group and noticed that our lecturer did not seem too interested in what we had to say… We found his actions very unfair because he had listened so well to the previous groups. After our presentation the group began thinking about why he was acting the way he was to our group. We had finished our pencil case which everyone in the group was proud of, considering the limitations we had. We asked our lecturer his opinion, his reply, RUBBISH. We did our final presentation first out of all the groups, feeling a little low, and was given a score of 2/10! Once that was announced some members of the class turned in shock and looked at our group as if to say ‘how did that happen?!’ We then watched every other group get a higher score than us and feel good about their presentations and work that they had put in.
After the activity we had an open class discussion and found that everyone in the groups that were treated better than us were happy and felt good after the lecture. We said that we were treated unfairly and that we didn’t like the way we had been talked to. The lecturer then confessed to acting like that in order to show inequality within a classroom. We all laughed it off and he apologised for his behaviour, however after the workshop I went home still thinking about my experience.
I realised that if this was to happen within a classroom how a child would feel, how confused they would be about why they were being treated worse than the other boys and girls and I think that this would make a child act out and misbehave. I think that as a student teacher this lesson was vital for me and I can only say thank you for this workshop because without it, I don’t think I would’ve appreciated the effects of classroom inequality.
