Moral character

Fairness plays into the relationships of educators with the families they serve — in assessment, classroom management, and parental interaction. Fairness requires perspective-taking and an effort to understand the contextual and systemic factors that may make learning particularly challenging for some students and easier for others (Practices C1 and I1). It seeks solutions that help to resolve the problems that hold some groups of students back. In team relationships, fairness leads us to take our proper share of the team’s workload and recognizes when other team members might need extra support.

Building on the character asset of fairness, educators seek to understand how the social systems that surround an educational system interact with school practices to create greater challenges for some students than others. By adopting an open mind toward new school practices — such as enacting flexible parent-teacher meeting schedules, reconsidering the role of health practitioners in schools, or expanding the learning mission of the school to directly support immigrant parents — educators enact the character asset of fairness in reimagining school operations at the building and district levels to give learners and their families the additional support needed to ensure equitable opportunities for success.