Equally

All men are created equally; sounds too good to be true. That is because it is not true. All men (or in the PC world in which we live: women, men identifying as women, women identifying as men, trans gender, or just simply “them”) are not created equally. (For the attempt at brevity “them” will henceforth be referred to as “men”, thank you) It’s a ludicrous thought, and for people to follow with the pretense that it could even remotely be true is silly. The fact that our voices sound different we have different colored hair, eyes, skin (even within our racial categories), we are different heights, body types and a myriad of different differences. All men are not even close to being created equal.

As an educator I inform my students on the first day of class that they will not all be treated equally. Someone who has the ability to succeed at a high level will be required to perform ABOVE that level. Another student who, for any number of reasons, is expected to perform higher that where are currently are. Based on the inequities in ability it is not possible to hold the same expectations for all students.

Universally, everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses. Not even student should go to college. Not every person is capable of working a manual labor job. Not every adult is capable of paying close enough attention to details to function in many tedious jobs. Not everyone’s patient enough to be a strong teacher. We are not created equally.

The intention and goal of interaction should be toward equality. All should have the opportunity to become successful members of their community, however they are personally able to contribute. There should be the same laws and media coverage for all; but we know this not to be true (I.e. minorities who have been accused of mass shootings, before trial, are referred to as “the shooter”, a white male who is accused of the same crime, before trial, is referred to as “the accused shooter”). Should it be equal?

If we continue to measure ourselves and our society with the interest of being equal most of us will live lives as failures. We are all able to contribute, some more than others, and we are all able to function toward the success of our community. If we continue to try to homogenize our world the ability to function as a community will be diminished. Globally, we are a community, and that has its problems as well.

To call for pure socialism is to assume that equality exists; it doesn’t. To call for pure capitalism is to expect everyone to be successful and able to contribute in the same way; they cannot. There is no right answer and there is no one path that will always be successful. The goal of education should not be to strive for equality; producing mindless automatons, but should strive to allow everyone to be successful in their own way.

Being educated is not being equal, it is being able to contribute in your own way. Teaching is not instructing different student with equal measure, it is providing different students with fair opportunities to be as successful and learning to contribute as much as they possibly can to their community.