What's Fair?
“That’s not fair!” What teacher has not heard that complaint? And, if we are honest, who among us has not asked the same question at some moment when our desire has been thwarted?
What is fair, anyway? It is perhaps easier to determine what is unfair. I remember my grandmother pointing out, with very little sympathy to sweeten the message as she gave my older cousin the last cinnamon roll, that life is not fair. No doubt, all of us have had that pointed out along the path or come to know it firsthand. (And the fact that we already had a cinnamon roll that morning doesn’t seem relevant.)
The word fair seems to imply that things are “equitable.” If the third grade gets ten extra minutes of recess and the fifth grade does too, that is fair, right? If I get a raise and everyone else gets one as well, that is fair, right?
Actually, it is equal. It may or may not be fair.
Fair is more than mere equality. Fair carries with it a sense of justness, of individual consideration, and of far-sightedness. Equality is an easily administered sameness for all. Fair is not usually the same as equal.
For example, when a teacher spends extra time helping a student who is struggling in math, is she being unfair by not spending the same amount with everyone else? No. Not everyone needs the extra help. She is not treating everyone equally here, but she is treating the students fairly.
If there were two students struggling with the same math concept and she helped one but not the other, then we might have a case for unfairness. But even then, maybe not. The one she did not help may have a private tutor in math, and he may not have time or want to get extra help from her as well.
When students (or we) send up the cry “Unfair!” and lament how we have been dealt what seems a unique blow, the first thing to do is ask whether we want justice or equality.
When the Lord sent manna to the wilderness wanderers, He was treating them both fairly and equally. When He sends rain on the just and the unjust, He is treating all equally. But when He gives another teacher only seventeen students and I get twenty-five, then I might think He is treating me unfairly.
What I am really wanting is equality. But what He gave me is fairness. He knows far better than I do what is to be accomplished by my having those students—in them and in me. And the other teacher has her seventeen for reasons known to Him. If I could see the end of the year from eternity’s balcony, I would know that equality would not have been nearly as good for me as fairness. But my view is not that good at present. I just have to trust.
Trusting that what happens to me is in God’s control is not the easiest thing I do day by day. It is really hard to believe that when life seems so unfair that I want to cry. If only I could remember that God is always fair, then I could remember to be content. All things being equal.
Alice Bronson is an English teacher and a freelance writer.