Teaching "Diversity"

 I am currently teaching a small class on James and the Giant Peach to Grade 2 students on the weekends. One of the many interesting things which happens in this book is how James encounters human-sized insects inside the peach, all of whom can speak the same language as James. James is initially frightened by these creatures, simply because they seem repulsive to look at when he first finds them. However, over time, he starts to befriend them and respect their abilities and special ways of being, much as one sometimes sees in someone talking about her or his 'eccentric' family members. If anyone wants a good example of this humorous sort of writing, they need only go as far as reading Gerald Durrell's My Family and Other Animals, for a witty take on the peculiarities of family exchanges.
   When I designed the lesson plan, I thought of having the kids compare two of the creatures in terms of their appearance and actions, as well as creating a creature of their own, using the language that they already know. But now I begin to question my choices. Although comparison seems a worthy skill for children to learn, I wonder what I might be teaching children in asking them to compare two sentient beings. What does it mean when we compare at all, and does it not often lead to an attitude of discriminating one over the other? Does comparison also inspire thoughts of competition and preference, rather than inclusion and appreciation? Even my lesson in having the children create and describe their own character can be sometimes problematic, depending on how it is framed. If it's purely an exercise in the imagination and learning how to describe the way things function, it's fine and well. But when I start to say, "describe your creation's special powers", I begin to wonder whether I am uncritically promoting cultural notions of ability and disability, or 'adaptation' and 'maladaptation'. Somehow, my lesson plan draws in a lot of sometimes questionable "evolutionary" notions, and I wonder if these are always healthy for people to learn.
     There is another way of framing these assignments, and that it to look at it from the perspective that living beings are equal but different--they are all sacred creations with a value in their own right, and there is simply no need to compare their differences unless to celebrate what each can do. But again, I have to caution about 'can do' because this again privileges a notion of merit and ability which is often heavily influenced by a culture's preferences or biases. To put it in an ecological perspective--we normally say that weeds are useless and have 'no value', because we are thinking about weeds only from the perspective of a very particular human use or exploitation. As soon as a weed starts to be seen as pretty or valuable to an edible (by human terms) agricultural product, it is no longer 'just a weed', but it starts to seem valuable. But until then, people will try to eliminate the weed from their garden.
  I don't think there is a straightforward answer to what I am driving at, but my point is that even a seemingly innocent lesson plan can smuggle in the subtle ideology that imagines some people to have more merit than others. Can I take this same lesson plan and take it in a different direction? So far, the only answer I have is to encourage the learner to consider an alternate world, where what they might consider unmentionable becomes very special, and vice versa, or something 'valuable' when taken to extremes can lead to problems. The story "Midas and the Magic Touch" is one example that illustrates the latter, and there are several alternative versions of familiar stories that might furnish discussion on the former.