It's the difference between someone giving me a ride to work and someone doing my job for me. If the the point of the Calculus class is - ugh, it's been awhile for me so I might be messing this up - to teach the power rule or the thing being taught in English class is how to write a cogent essay in a set period of time then giving a student a calculator or more time is doing the job for the kid.
If they're incapable of doing the work why are the in class? Maybe there's a different class that's more appropriate for them?
So it sounds like you agree with me that, for an English Composition exam, all students should receive the same amount of time. Is that correct?
But now I'm wondering:
- if someone's typing speed is slow due to arthritis or an identifiable condition, shouldn't they get extra time?
- if someone's typing speed is slow just because they never learned to touch type, should they get extra time? after all, the exam is meant to be testing English composition, not typing.
The first is getting right at the nub of thing. I think accommodations should be made but the worst accommodation is one that would advantage anyone not just a person with a condition that could hold someone back.
So - to switch hypotheticals to one that I was thinking about for no reason - you would give Stephen Hawking a speech synthesizer in Physics 101 not more time. Any student would like more time but no one able to communicate would be interested in a speech synthesizer.
That would be my version of fair in any case. Is it possible? I don't know and the incentives involved would (as I think a lot of people would agree) be pushing towards the worst kind of accommodation.