Active learning ideas
Fairness and justice are central to how we organize society. This topic moves from individual ethics to social ethics, exploring how resources, opportunities, and rights should be distributed. In the Irish context, this can be linked to historical and contemporary issues of social justice, aligning with the NCCA Junior Cycle's focus on 'Working with Others' and 'Contributing to making the world a better place.'
Activity 01
Students must design the rules for a new society (e.g., healthcare, education, taxes). However, they don't know if they will be rich, poor, healthy, or sick in this new world. They must negotiate rules that would be fair for everyone regardless of their eventual role.
What does a fair society look like?
Activity 02
Groups are given a scenario (e.g., a school sports day) and must create two different plans: one based on 'Equality' and one on 'Equity.' They present their plans and the class votes on which feels more 'just' and why.
Should everyone get the same, or get what they need?
Activity 03
A simple prompt: 'If you have one cake and five people, what is the fairest way to divide it?' Students must consider factors like hunger, who baked the cake, and who hasn't had cake in a long time, sharing their 'fairness criteria' with the class.
How do we balance individual freedom with the common good?
A few notes on teaching this unit
Watch Out for These Misconceptions
Fairness always means treating everyone exactly the same.
Students often confuse equality with justice. Through simulations, they can see that giving a tall person and a short person the same size ladder doesn't result in a fair outcome, helping them understand that justice sometimes requires 'equitable' rather than 'equal' treatment.
Justice is just about punishing people who do wrong.
Many students associate justice only with the police or courts (retributive justice). Active learning tasks about resource distribution help them see 'distributive justice', how we share the good things in society, as an equally important part of the concept.
Methods used in this brief