The F.A.T (Frustration, Anxiety, Tension) City Workshop was a class titled “How Difficult Can This Be?” given by Richard D. Lavoie to a diverse group of individuals. The goal of the workshop was to let the attenders experience the frustration, anxiety, and tension faced by children with learning disabilities. Mr. Lavoie was able to, through a series of scenarios, give viewers an inside look into what it is like to have a learning disability. The workshop was held in a classroom with teachers, social workers, parents and siblings of children with a learning disability, psychologists, bank executives, rehabilitation counselors, and children with learning disabilities. The scenarios used by Mr. Lavoie gave us an inside glimpse of what it is …show more content…
Lavoie speaks about fairness. This was my favorite part of the video. He states “We can’t run our classrooms based on our children’s idea or notion of fairness.” He defines fairness as “What everyone need to be successful,” not making sure everyone has the same thing. For instance, copying notes; we might have to make a copy for a student while the others take the notes themselves. Fair is making sure that particular student has what he or she needs to succeed, it is not about the other students who might perceive that as unfair. He gave another example of CPR. If someone in the class needs CPR should he not give it because he isn’t teaching the class while giving the CPR? Teaching the class is what he is there to do so it would not be fair to the other students if he had to stop the class to perform a life-saving measure. This definitely made me think about how often I hear “but that’s not fair” out of my students. I have been in a classroom with a poster of this idea placed on the walls. I never gave it much thought but this definitely changed my opinion on the meaning of the term. I will have a poster up in my classroom soon! Also, I can now respond differently to my students who say that something isn’t fair. This is going to be such a great teaching