Comparing and Contrasting: A Life Skill

Compare and Contrast:  Beyond the Venn Diagram

Megamonsters Beware!

As a third grade teacher, I start teaching comparing and contrasting early in the year.  It looks like this, "Turn to your partner.  Find something that is the same.  Now find something that is different.  Use what you see and your interest survey to record you comparison and contrast on a venn diagram.  Be prepared to tell the group how you are the same and different."  Then it moves to much more complicated forms of comparing and contrasting using characters, genres, plots, etc. as the year progresses.  I know I hit success when my students internalize this process and start doing it naturally with my read alouds or during their book buzz time.  I know I have much more base level work to do when a student cannot connect to text in this way.

Why is this so important?  Don't tell me because it is on a test.  It is through the comparisons and contrasts of life that we really begin to discern, to "see", to find joy or discrimination, love or hate.  Comparing and contrasting nurtures perspective which frames all issues and is a basic element in our democracy.  My students need to develop a lens to view their world and make their decisions, not because they need to be able to "compete" in some artificial "race to the top" but because they have to live with themselves their whole life and so does their family.

Comparing and contrasting my own family history has helped me chart my course.  It hasn't been perfect.  I have not won the Noble Peace Prize nor have I earned millions with any great invention but I have found a place where I call "home" and this base is fertile ground for growing thinkers. If I can plant the seeds of being able to compare and contrast with my students, they will have the lens they need to make their own discernment and choices.  Whether it pleases Bill Gates, Jeb Bush or anyone plotting to profit from their skills is unknown to me.  But you bet I see the contrast!

So, just for fun.  Here is my comparison and contrast thus far for today.

Me Likey:  Waking up to my son's innovative and spontaneous creation.  Yesterday, after discovering he bought the wrong kind of clear display "holders" for his trading cards, he turned it into his own game called,
"Mega Monsters."  His detail and commitment to task are admirable.  This kid is gonna do somethin' with that noggin!

Me NO Likey:  I have been trying to set my intention for the day when I open my eyes by paying attention to what surfaces.  The surface today was these two phrases, "Data driven" and "Fidelity to Programs".  Me no likey these for very good reasons.  They ARE MEGAMONSTERS.  Semantics shape policy and implementation.  Leaders follow and followers swallow.  I don't want to eat a megamonster!

First, I don't DO data driven.  I drive my car.  I drive nails into the wall.  I do not drive data nor do I drive instruction.  I inform my practice by looking at data.  DATA INFORMED!  I can chew on that!

Second, Fidelity is what I have with my husband, not with programs.  I am faithful to my friends and my family.  I show fidelity to my children...all of them.  This doesn't mean I don't grasp scope and sequence or standards or the role of testing and accountability.  I get it.  How many ways must I prove it?

My job is to teach children.  I will do that by being INFORMED and FAITHFUL to their learning.  Yes, yes I will.

So, who cares?  Right?  It's just some little words...  Yeah, except those words are powerful daggers in the hands of monsters.

So, Megamonsters, Beware!

I know how to compare and contrast and so do my children!

What is your comparison and contrast for the day?