Life's not fair

I remember when I was little and I would whine that something wasn't fair and my dad would ask, "Who said life was fair?" Some people live to exploit life's unfairness for their own gain. Some people spend their whole lives whining about it. Most of us wish it wasn't that way. Once in a while, someone decides to try to do something about it. Once you grow up, if you are one of those people who actually grow up, you realize that there are things that you can make fair and things you can't. You also learn to tell the difference between intentional and unintentional unfairness.

You know that I have been on a rant lately about the unfairness of the immigration situation in this country, and I have been heartened to see more and more people leaning towards the approach of Kennedy and McCain in this matter. We are not all born into the same circumstances, but we can do what we can, especially in a nation such as ours to even the playing field as much as possible. Today, I had to deal with a smaller instance of unfairness. Still, it affected me and a student of mine who I very much like.

Next Friday is the big spring folklorico show for the group I direct at school. We call it "El Gran Show de Primavera". We have a mixed group--in ability, dedication, generosity and so on. Earlier in the year, after a shooting incident, we lost several dancers to harassment, and, sadly in the case of one student, to actual involvement in the crime. With our numbers down, I could no longer get rid of students who did not comply with all the rules or attend all the practices. Our choreographer began missing more and more rehearsals out of frustration, but since we have little money and she worked for very little, it was a situation that had to be accepted. Often times, our two student officers, with no notice, had to step in and run rehearsals. While I am the "director" of the program, I have little control over some of its very important aspects.

Yesterday, a very sweet, hard-working, helpful dancer missed a key rehearsal for choreography and was cut from a dance, along with another student who was out sick. She found out today. It seemed unfair. Well, let's face it, it was unfair. The whole program is unfair. My situation is unfair--and unpaid. The student officers' situation is unfair. The fact that the school wants to have the program, but doesn't fund it is unfair. Unfortunately, rather come to speak to me about it during a calm moment, the girl interrupted my forth period Spanish class and started yelling at me in front of my class. She pointed out that another girl had missed a practice and had not been cut from a dance. I explained that it was an easier choreography, that the student was an officer, that she was a more experienced dancer and the choreographer felt that she could pick up the choreography. She felt that meant that two students were being treated differently. Well, they were, but they were different people with different experience levels. One had carried a lot of weight all year with no extra credit, no higher grades. Really, that was more unfair than one girl being cut from one dance. But the main lesson here, like my dad always said was: "Who said life was fair?"

Was it fair for her to interrupt my class? Was it fair for the choreographer to miss so many classes? Was it fair that innocent kids were harassed out of the school after a few kids committed a horrendous crime?

As a teacher, I want every kid to have a fair chance. Of course kids come to me with different baggage, different parents, different home lives, talents, intelligences, attention spans, illnesses, fears, hopes. You spend day after day trying to make things as fair as you can. What is fair for one is not always fair for another, just as one student's best is 100% on a test and another's best is to keep struggling until they pass a test. What happened to this girl was unfair, but not intentionally unfair. If we had another week until the show, maybe we could have kept her in that dance. If our choreographer hadn't missed classes, maybe we would have already blocked that dance. But we have one week and the choreographer had missed classes and that's that. I hate to see a kid upset like that, especially when it is a kid I really like, who works hard, who lends a helping hand. But, life isn't fair.

It is one of the hardest and most important lessons we can learn.