This was an assembly I did a couple of months ago. I was given the topic of justice, which when I looked up has a similar meaning to fairness, so I partly went with that idea. I did a second assembly on justice, and had this in mind when I led this one. In my head the idea was to create a link between these two.
Get the children to do something that isn’t fair, eg. One group wrap a present - 4 girls using selotape and scissors against a group of 3 boys who can only use one hand at a time, no selotape
Ask them, what was wrong with that competition?
Well, it wasn’t really fair.
And do you know what I based it a bit on boys against girls. But the boys didn’t really have a fair chance, they were just put in that group because they were boys.
Do you think it is important to be fair in games so that people get an equal chance? What about in life? So in school is it fair that you are in your school year because of your age, not because of the colour of your hair. What if you were only allowed to go to a shop if your feet were smaller than size 12 but if they were bigger then you wouldn’t be allowed to go to the shop? Or if you could only do sports if you had red hair?
Well, there was a man who lived a while again who thought that people should be treated fairly. In his country people weren’t treated fairly. There were laws that said only white people could sit at the front of the bus, that African American people couldn’t always use the same restaurants as white people, they couldn’t drink from the same water fountains or even go to the same schools. It was about the colour of their skin.
But this man didn’t like this, he wanted it to change, he wanted his country to be fair. But he didn’t want things to change through fighting, or through being nasty but through peaceful marches and through talking to people who were in charge of the country. He wanted to help all Americans get a good education and people would come from all over America to hear him speak.
So he stood up for fairness – he worked hard to get people to listen.
He had one very famous speech that was called the “I have a dream speech”, he imagined the world as a better place where things were fair. Things being fair is like justice, that everyone is treated fair is giving justice.
One of the lines from the speech was “I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character” – that’s it’s not what is on the outside but what is on the inside that counts.
Now this man, Martin Luther King, changed the world. He made it a better place for people to live, with the help of lots of people. He died over 50 years ago but people still remember the things he did. He also believed in God, he was a minister a bit like Richard, and what he believed, the things he knew about Jesus affected his work. Jesus also talked about looking at what is inside, in the heart, and not about how someone looks.
Now, I want you guys to think about what sort of things do you see in the world that aren’t fair, things about the way people are treated, or maybe about how animals are treated. Fair trade, that you have looked into, is also about making the world a fairer place. What sort of things do you think should change to make the world a fairer place?
Maybe you see someone being bullied for the way they look or people being mean to each other? I want you to think about how you can change the world, or think about talking to your teachers about changing the world while we listen to the song. This song talks about waiting for change to happen but I want you to think how you can make it happen and make the world a better place to live in (then played the song, “Waiting for the World to Change” by John Meyer)
As part of this assembly you could share images of Martin Luther King making some of his speeches and one of the larger demonstrations.
