Equality

Man has long been fighting for equality from the very beginning. When we talk of equality, we can remember people like, Abraham Lincoln who fought for the equality of people and freedom from slavery. Martin Luther King fought for the equality of blacks and whites, and of course our national Hero, Dr. Jose P. Rizal who fought for equal treatment of the Filipinos and the Spaniards.

There are a lot of organizations now that focused on ensuring that everyone is being treated equally, however, we can still say that discrimination is still unavoidable.

“Cebu Pacific faces P5-M anti-discrimination suit”, this headline became very controversial on the first month of 2010, as Gokongwei-led Cebu Pacific Airlines is facing a P5-million civil suit for attempting to offload a child with developmental disability from one of its flights last December.

The Alcantara family filed a complaint against Cebu Pacific for on December 23, Alcantara and her son, John Arvin, was pressured by Cebu Pacific's purser and cabin crew to get off a plane bound for Manila from Hong Kong. Alcantara said the crew members flatly told her that John Arvin was a special child and was banned from boarding Cebu Pacific planes as stated under company rules. This incident anger most people especially those who are against discrimination. This occurred a couple of years ago, but the it still mirrors the situation of today.

Within the field of employment, discrimination and equality apply in relation to gender, ethnic or racial origins and nationality, disability, sexuality, religion, transgender and age. Discrimination and equality are governed by the key principle that a worker should receive ‘no less favorable treatment’.

Our labor code includes the rights of our workers. The state is trying its very best to show equality of men and women and of handicapped people.

How about equality in education? Can we say we have equality in education when we have “public schools” for poor and “private schools” for the rich.

Teachers are very much expected to show equality and fairness in dealing with his/her students. As a code of ethic, teachers should not be biased in treating their students.

A parent bringing “something” or donating something to the school in exchange for the “medal” for his son/daughter is not a unusual scene, and sad to say that there are still teachers who are giving in to this kind of temptation but where is the “honor” in that?

Aside from “poor” and “rich”, another issue of equality comes in when dealing with those who are “bright” and those who are “not-so-bright.” Often times, teachers tend to be nice to those who can easily understand the lesson and tend to be hostile to those who cannot grasp the lesson easily.

Equality in education has many facets and teachers have to be sensitive to know and act on this.

“Education is the point at which we decide whether we love the world enough to assume responsibility for it and by the same token to save it from that ruin, which, except for renewal, except for the coming of the new and the young, would be inevitable. An education, too, is where we decide whether we love our children enough not to expel them from our world and leave them to their own devices, nor to strike from their hands their choice of undertaking something new, something unforseen by us, but to prepare them in advance for the task of renewing a common world.” -Hannah Arendt

“Who dares to teach must never cease to learn.” -John Cotton Dana

.