Students will experience the effects of unequal resources on student achievement, share their thoughts about educational disparities and take action to bring about change.
Art Activity
Provide half the class with cover stock, a good box of crayons and quality scissors. Give the other half of the class notebook paper, poor quality scissors and one crayon each. Have students cut out and color people shapes to create realistic "Me" paper dolls [1] (PDF). Repeat the activity swapping resources so all students get to experience the activity with low-quality and high-quality resources. Display the artwork.
Round Robin
Quickly go around the room asking the students to respond to the following questions (response is optional).
Discussion
Facilitate a discussion about the ways inequality of resources affect student achievement.
Action
What actions can be taken to make education fair and equal for all students?
Choose 1 or 2 of the ideas to develop into a plan of action.
Facilitate the action plan.
Variations
Quality and size of paintbrushes, magic markers and other materials can be used for a variety of activities to model the importance of adequate and equal resources to support equal achievement.
Students can be asked to research and write a report. Let some students use the Internet and have others rely on outdated books.
Links:
[1] http://www.tolerance.org/images/teach/activities/TT_BHM_NotFair.pdf