Teacher instructions

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

20 minutes

Tune in: Meet the Matildas

30 minutes

Find out: Is it fair?

10 minutes

Take action: The change makers

5 minutes

Reflection

Tune in: Meet the Matildas

Step 1.

Introduce the Matildas by watching the Squad Announcement.

MATILDAS SQUAD ANNOUNCED: FIFA Women's World Cup 2023™ - Football Australia (youtube.com/watch?v=OhSIElULmeA)

Step 2.

After watching the announcement lead a see, think, wonder discussion with the students using the following questions:

What did you see the team talking about in this video?
What challenges do you think they faced in getting to the world cup?
What do you want to know about the team? What are you wondering about?

Step 2.

Read through the Why did the Matildas Strike? Factsheet. Discuss as a class: Was this situation fair? Why? You might like to consider the following:

what would you expect a national sports team to have provided for them? (uniforms, insurance, flights, accommodation, team doctors, training grounds, equipment, etc.)
the differences in pay and conditions between the women's and men’s teams
the popularity of women's vs men’s soccer
what do you know about the history of the sport?

Be prepared for some robust discussion! When it comes to the topic of what is fair and what isn’t, people can have strong opinions. It might help to take notes of key points from this discussion to return to later.

Find out: Is this fair?

Step 1.

Now, we will look at some more situations and try to decide if they are fair or unfair. Display the Is this Fair? Slide deck to students. Work through the situations one at a time. Ask the students what about the situation is unfair, and ask them to make suggestions about what could be done to repair the situation and make it more fair. Let’s start with real-world examples and then move into more abstract situations.

Rosa Parks refusing to move to the back of the bus
First Nation Peoples’ Rights in Australia
Norway Women’s Team volleyball uniform fine
Carly Finlay denied service by taxi driver

Step 2:

Pause here and identify for the students when they have used empathy based on the language they used (imagine if it was you, put yourself in their shoes) to help find a solution and when they have used respect (just because they look different doesn’t mean they should be treated differently, they have the right to be treated…)

Together as a class, create a definition of respect and empathy. You might do these as a whole class, or you might choose to use a think, pair, share activity to create your definitions.

Highlight to students the difference between empathy and sympathy. (Sympathy is when you understand the feelings of another because you have been in the same situation and can share those emotions. Empathy is when you haven’t experienced that situation, but you can put yourself in their shoes to understand their emotions)

Step 3:

Now we understand more about respect and empathy, let’s apply them to some of the following situations to try and make them fair.

Note: Some of these are tricky and will require some work! It is also necessary to be mindful of your students and their situations. Some of these examples might hit close to home for some students. That’s not always a bad thing, but you need to be aware of what might make your particular students feel vulnerable and what support they need. You don’t need to use all of the examples provided if it will be too tough a topic for right now.

Michael is in a wheelchair. In PE, they are playing basketball. His electric wheelchair isn’t very good for playing sports, and he’s too low down to shoot in the basketball hoop. He gets picked last for a team every time, and the other kids have stopped passing the ball to him. He told the teacher he doesn’t want to go to PE class anymore.
Lara loves soccer and tried out for the regional team. Much to her excitement, she was chosen to be a member of the team! But then she found out that she needed $3000 to pay for her uniform, registration, insurance, travel and accommodation for the tournament. Her parents couldn’t afford to pay, so she had to give up her spot and missed out.
James loves netball and has played since he was 8. This year he turned 12 and was told that there aren’t any mixed netball competitions anymore and that the girls have to play with the girls, and the boys have to play against other boys. Unfortunately, where he lives, there isn’t a boy's team.
Cecilia loves acting classes and drama. She tried out for the lead role in the school play of Beauty and the Beast and thought she did a really good job in the audition. When the roles were announced, Cecila was disappointed to find out that she didn’t get any role at all. When she went to speak to the Drama teacher, he explained to her that Beauty and the Beast was set in France and because she was Chinese, she couldn’t be in the play because she didn’t look French. He suggested maybe she could help out by being a stagehand and making the scenery.

Step 4:

When we make a situation ‘fair’, sometimes we are creating equality, but sometimes we are creating equity. Let’s facilitate a discussion about this.

Ask students: if everyone gets the same thing, is it fair?
As an example, if we were to give every student in this room a pair of football boots, that would be equality. Everyone is getting the same thing.
Put your hand up if you need new football boots. Put your hand up if you don’t need new football boots. Hmmm, well, it looks like this is equality, but it’s still not fair, is it?
Well, how about we give every person $50 to spend on sporting equipment? Is that fair?
Some people in the room could use $50 to spend on sporting equipment. They may need a new ball or new shin pads.
Some people don’t really need $50; they have all the gear they need, and fifty dollars wouldn’t get them anything else they need.
And for some people, $50 really isn’t enough. Maybe they need new boots, shinguards, a uniform AND a ball.
Equality would be if everyone got $50.
Equity would be if we figured out what everyone needed and then distributed the money so it will help as many people as possible. Some people might get zero dollars, and some people might get $200, but everyone would get what they need.
Which one is fairer here? Equality or equity?

Step 5:

Let’s look back at our solutions to our problems. Which ones were equality? Which ones were equity? Did we use the best solution to that problem?

Step 6:

Based on everything we know, can we write a definition of fair?

Take action: The change makers

Step 1:

When we’re looking at making situations fair, sometimes we create short-term solutions (ones that fix the issue for now), and sometimes we create systematic changes (it changes the way we do things from now on.) Let’s revisit our solutions to the issues we addressed in Step 2 and identify which solutions we proposed to fix the problem for now and which ones fix the problem going ahead. For those that only fixed the problem for now, can you think of a way to fix the problem going ahead? This may include BIG things like:

petitioning for a change to happen
fund-raising to pay for new equipment or infrastructure
using collective action to influence change
using your voice - write a letter, write a newspaper article, ask for a meeting.

Differentiation: For students who are struggling with these concepts, give them examples. Would fundraising help fix Ceclia’s issue of not being chosen for the school play? Would it fix Lara’s issue of not being able to attend the soccer tournament?

For students who need extension, ask them to break down some key steps they would need to take to implement this solution.

Step 2.

Let’s look at the Australian women’s football team again. Were the changes they created short-term or long-term?

What were the long-term implications of the changes? Some implications are:

future women football players have fair access to wages, facilities and support, allowing them to focus on the game
increase in popularity of football for young girls in Australia
other women's football teams, including the USA, started pushing for equity
other sports in Australia began to come under a critical lens to examine the pay gap
Australia was chosen to host the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup.

Reflection

Discuss with your students.

Why is it important to be fair, even when it doesn’t directly help us?
How do we feel when things are fair? How do we feel when things are unfair?
How do we feel when people respect us? Why is it important to respect others?
Why is it important to have empathy?

Differentiated Learning

Opportunities for differentiation have been included throughout this lesson.

Respect, Empathy and Fair Play

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