"Comparison is the Thief of Joy"

I have noticed, walking in English parkland, that during the approach to an indeterminate object — say a large rock, with mossy growths, or a small log, the mind continues, from the minimal evidence, or sketched points of reference given, to construct the supposed creature. I have created whole ravens — heavy beaks, claws, pinion-feathers, watchful eye — from what had to be reconstructed, seen again, as a hawthorn root. ~A.S. Byatt

We've all experienced this phenomenon, seeing one thing only to discover that it's something else entirely. It happens with all of our senses. We smell vomit only to discover that it's actually parmesan cheese (both owe their distinctive odor to butyric acid). We hear a lawn mower only to find it's an old, badly-tuned VW bug. We taste soap that turns out to be cilantro. We feel dampness when the t-shirt we're touching is just unexpectedly cold. And it goes beyond the standard five senses. I've thought I was feeling dizzy while walking on a gently swaying suspension bridge. I've experienced stomach pain as hunger. I've thought I felt the first vibrations of an earthquake when I was only shivering.

These sensory "mistakes" don't typically last long as our minds reassess and reconstruct reality as we take in more information, but for some of us some of the time, say those who consistently taste cilantro as soap, it's no mistake, but rather truth. 

In recent decades, in our cultural and intellectual efforts to understand that truth can vary from individual to individual and from circumstance to circumstance, we've experimented with notions of neurodivergence and neurotypicality, but it's becoming increasingly clear that when it comes to our species (or, indeed, any species) the notion of "normal" or even "typical" is at best useless, and potentially harmful.

Modern schooling, however, is constructed upon foundations of normal and typical. The media today, for instance, is full of pearl clutching over children who are not reading at "grade level." The concept of "grade level" emerged from 19th century efforts to standardize learning, applying dubious mathematics and assembly-line methods to human children. This has lead to standardizing text, tests, and teaching methods. This has resulted in dividing children into categories of "exceptional" (those who are "ahead"), "normal" (those who live up to the math) and "behind" (e.g., not normal). But it's meaningless because the whole concept of "grade level" is an arbitrary benchmark superficially dressed up as "science" in the same way that colonists used their so-called "science" to determine that indigenous people were inferior or "behind."

The concept of neurodivergence is a step in the right direction. It's an attempt to dispense with the ugly idea of inferiority, but the gold standard remains typicality. Neurodivergence is still, according to our educational system, most often equated with being behind. But that leaves the question: "Behind what?"

Well, behind the typical children, of course. Who are these typical children? I've never met one. Typical is a statistical concept, not a human one. It's a concept that has no use or meaning other than in comparison. 

Theodore Roosevelt famously said, "Comparison is the thief of joy." Or as spiritual teacher Iyania Vanzant more pointedly puts it, "Comparison is an act of violence."

When we compare humans, and especially when we do it under the auspices of the kind of pseudo-science our schools rely on, not only do we harm children, but we rob them of the joy that is a natural part of learning. Each child, each human, stands with a unique perspective on our world, yet we persist in forcing each of them to eat the cilantro no matter what it tastes like to them.

But what of those undeniable hawthorn roots? Certainly, we can't have them going through life thinking they're ravens. Standardization requires us to compel them to see those damned hawthorn roots right now, even if their own mind is still constructing ravens. Otherwise, what? They're behind? Behind what? Just because a "typical" has already experienced the miracle of constructing a hawthorn root, that doesn't mean there is anything behind about the person who continues to construct ravens for a time. If it's important, as they draw closer, as it becomes more relevant to them, as they examine that object for themselves with their own senses, they will in their own time experience the miracle, the joy, of reconstructing hawthorn roots from ravens. 

That's what learning is. Learning is always a process of deconstructing the status quo and replacing it with something new. Learning is not, as our schools would have it, living up to a statistic called "typical."

Indeed, all our geniuses are those who realize that what everyone has assumed are hawthorn roots are indeed ravens. This is exactly the lesson we've been learning about indigenous wisdom for the past couple hundred years (see Robin Wall Kimmerer's eye- and heart-opening book Braiding Sweetgrass).

The truth is that none of us are neurotypical. And who would want to be? The truth is that none of us are behind. The truth is that we are born to commune with truth from our own unique and divergent perspectives. That's learning. That's what brings us joy. And this is why play must stand at the center of education.

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