letters to my class

Dear Humans,

There’s a thousand year old tapestry that is all the rage in London right now. It’s been in France for at least the last 700 years, but there are many unknowns about where, when, and who actually made the thing.

What we do know is that it’s a 230 foot long piece of cloth that tells the story of the Norman invasion of England–one stitch at a time. And we know that people are waiting in long lines to see it. And not everyone (especially people in France) is very happy about it.

Because isn’t that the way history works? Thousand year old battles never really end. The past is stitched into the fabric of our world, and it unfurls far into the future.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

I bought two-dozen eggs last weekend, so I’ve been cooking up lots of eggs. Good thing there are many, many ways to cook an egg. 

I’ve boiled them, fried them, scrambled them, made them into an omelet, put them in banana bread, and even used the whites to make a drink nice and foamy. I ate them almost every way except for raw. 

Because eggs have two parts–the white and yolk–and because eggs are so sensitive to heat and change, we can do a lot with them. But that also makes them easy to screw up. Break them, under season them, overcook them, make a sticky mess in the pan. Like most things in life, the weaknesses and the strengths walk next to each other, hand in hand.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

Sometimes I do that teacher thing where I blurt out the answer while I’m trying to ask the question. (Some of you still don’t get it right.) And sometimes during a spelling test one of the words is just sitting there on a poster, waiting for anyone to copy it down. 

And though the teacher scolds would probably let me have it for my poor questioning strategies and lack of preparation, I think these lapses show something about our world: if we’re paying attention, if we’re listening, if we’re fully engaged, the right answer is often at our feet, ready for us to pick it up.

Because the truth is a secret that tells itself. If we have ears to hear it.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

Everyone wants an expert. I was at my local strip mall the other day and the Wingstop had a sign calling their employees “Wing Experts.” Right next door the credit union claimed that their people were “your local experts.” At least the doctors’ offices are honest enough to call themselves practices.

A real expert isn’t just someone who knows a lot; it’s someone who has the capacity to find out more. Because the more you learn about a topic, the more you know you don’t know. But you might have the means to find out. Which then leads you to more that you don’t know.

Never trust someone who can’t say “I don’t know.” That’s something real experts say all the time.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

Yesterday we drew labyrinths and learned their history. Labyrinths show up throughout human history, independently, and around the world. When that happens, we should pay attention because it says something about what human beings are all about.

And in the case of the labyrinth, it’s not just that it’s a pretty picture or a calming practice. People saw the labyrinth as a metaphor for life. A pathway full of twists and turns that doesn’t seem to have any kind of rhyme or reason when you’re in it but eventually gets you to the end. 

Life is like that in America in 2026 just like it was like that in the Sonoran Desert in the 1700s just like it was like that in Crete in 400 BC.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

This world offers us lots of shortcuts. Just ask ChatGPT or Alexa or Siri. Don’t work hard and get a job–AI’s gonna take them all anyways!–become an influencer and post something that goes viral. Hit the parlay. Get the big score. To do the hard work of learning things, this world tells us, is for suckers. 

But I assure you it’s not. Some days it’s hard to envision much of a future, but if we have any hope for one, we’re going to need people who know things. Things like multiplication tables, names on the map, dates and facts of history. Things you learn from reading books. Not so we can compete against the machines, but because learning those things makes us more human.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

Be like Prometheus. When Zeus was gonna get rid of humankind, Prometheus stole fire from Mount Olympus and handed it to us. After that we could see the truth of the world and become scientists, artists, and full humans. (He was pretty famously punished for it, however!)

We freely hand out knowledge at school, but there’s stuff we keep hidden. We teach you to walk in line, but we don’t tell you all the lines you’ll be walking in out in the real world. We teach you to read the words, but we don’t tell you how people use those words to get you to believe things that aren’t true. That is knowledge that you’re gonna have to take for yourself.

Because the truths of this world can only be seen by the light of stolen fire.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

A law of statistics is regression to the mean. A law of nature is homeostasis. A law of water flow is that it always finds the lowest point and spreads out. The world seeks balance. Nature works hard to keep us from the extremes.

And a law of this human life is that it’s hard to have two bad days in a row. (But it’s also hard to have two really great days in a row.) We live in a world of do-overs. Sunrise on a new day. A chance to do it better.

But you’ve got to keep getting out of bed. Keep rising to meet the day. Keep giving each day the chance to surprise you (or humble you).

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

Last weekend we had college hunks haul away some of our junk. Which is funny because when we bought the stuff not too many years ago, it was far from junk; it was useful, beautiful, clean stuff. 

And I don’t think it was just time and wear and tear that turned it into junk. It really only became junk once we bought new stuff to replace it. And that new stuff said, “You’re junk! Get out of here.”

But there is some stuff in our house that’s seen it all. Some real wise stuff. Stuff that’s been handed down to us and stuff that we’ll hand down. And that stuff doesn’t say much, but if it did, it’d tell the new stuff, “You’ll be junk too someday. Just you wait.”

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

We’re learning how to write informative essays and I made a poster of the rules of writing an informative essay. One of the rules is that informative essays are written in the 3rd person.

But last week we were writing informative essays about an object that is important to us and we quickly realized that if we didn’t use I, me, mine in the essays that we would sound insane. So I added some parentheses after the fourth rule of informative writing–“Write in the 3rd person”–that said “(most of the time).”

And most of the time, most of the rules have that same parenthetical coming after them. Because some of time the only real way to follow a rule is to break it.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt