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Showing posts from September, 2009

The Problem with Fairness

Several years ago I went with my oldest son's gifted student's class on a field trip to Seattle's Pacific Science Center. I was responsible for 4 boys. When lunch time came one of the boys in my group had brought his lunch, while the 3 other boys, including mine, were carrying money to buy lunch in the snack shop. I left the 4 boys under supervision of another parent while I went to snack bar to buy junk food lunch. When I explained to the boys that I was going into the snack bar to buy hot dogs or burgers for 3 of them the boy who had brought his lunch looked down at the brown bag that his mother had prepare with love, and thought about the egg salad, peanut butter and jelly or ham that it contained and realized that he was not getting the same thing the other kids did . The six-year old, speaking in a very angry tone, as if I had mistreated him said, "Mr. Griffis , that's not equitable." Being the mean uncompassionate conservative that I am (also cons