Dear Time Travelers,

When I walk into the classroom in the morning and the day’s date is already written on the board and the pencils are all sharpened and the room is prepared for the day, I give a little shoutout. “Thank you, Yesterday Me.”

But sometimes that guy is a real jerk. Leaving dirty dishes in the sink, ignoring the ungraded math assignments in the backpack, and you ought to see some of the stuff that guy puts in my stomach.

Everything we do is a pebble dropped in the water. We can’t ever know who the spreading ripples will touch. But we can know that we will get the largest ones. So be kind to Tomorrow You (and forgiving of Yesterday You).

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

When we’re born, we’re entirely dependent on our caretakers. To feed us, to protect us, and to keep our rear ends clean. And then we get pretty good at cleaning our own rear ends and think we’re independent. But then we find we still need people to give us advice, make us laugh, and make us feel like us.

And even when we’re able to take care of our own physical needs, we find ourselves called to the needs of others. Maybe our own children, our friends, strangers, or maybe even the people who used to take care of us. 

In this life, we’re never independent. We’re always connected to others. No matter how clean we keep our rear ends.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

Sometimes when I’m driving home and the song I’m listening to isn’t quite over, I drive around the block real slow so I can catch that final verse and chorus.

It’s never with a new or unfamiliar song. It’s usually an old John Prine song that I’ve heard a million times and could recite from memory backwards.

Because there’s something about the known. And though the recording doesn’t change, our ears do. And the cars we drive do. And the homes we park them at do. And the people riding in the car with us (or no longer riding with us) most definitely do. 

And with all that change surrounding us, it’s good to hear that same old chorus one more time.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Learners,

Learning is about creating mental buckets to store information. When we learn about nouns, we create a noun bucket in our head. Then, when we need a noun, we quickly retrieve it from the bucket.

It’s a pretty good system! But it’s important to remember that it’s not really about the buckets. It’s about what we store in the buckets. And that stuff moves from bucket to bucket depending on our situation. Because a word that’s sometimes a noun isn’t always a noun.

Some people really love their buckets and think things must always belong in the same bucket all the time. But that’s not how this crazy world works. So get yourself some buckets, but get really good at swapping stuff out of them.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Grandchildren,

The best part of being a teacher is getting to know your students. So yesterday while you were working on a project, I walked around and asked you what you call your grandmas. 

At first some of you just said “grandma” but then I could see you thinking and you told me Nonna or Abeula or Lita or Gran. We all think what we call our grandmas is normal, but we quickly find that while there are many commonalities in this world, there is no normal. 

So for those of us lucky enough to still have grandmas, the names we call them is one of the most important things about us. Because it shows us who we belong to. And that’s comforting in this not-so-normal world.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

Some people question whether kids should learn how to read an analog clock because you always have a digital clock in your pocket. And I guess that’s true.

But I love analog clocks. Because, like time itself, an analog clock is a circle. It just keeps coming back around itself, in a cycle, just like nature. That tree with green leaves will soon be bare and a few months later will be white with blooms. Time after time after time.

So even though it might not be a “21st century skill” we’re going to be reading clocks today. Just like humans have done for hundreds of years. And I bet you’ll feel a little closer to the rhythms of nature while you do it.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Learners,

It’s your first day of 5th grade. And you share it with about 30 other kids. You might think we cram a bunch of the same-aged kids in a classroom together because it’s more efficient. But really it’s because learning happens in a community.

I’ll try to do most of the teaching, but every person in here has something to teach you. And you have something to teach every person (especially me). And the only way we can do it is if we’re a community.

Some people are hopeful that technology will completely change how we learn. I’m a bit more skeptical. I’ve spent my entire life in schools, and I’ve seen that learning is a very complex process. And a thoroughly human one.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

There are nearly 8 billion people in the world. And a lot of them are a lot like you or me. Just down the block there are similar schools with similar kids learning similar curriculum from similar teachers.

Which is all to say that none of us are all that special. 

But we might be the only son to someone. Or the only father. Or the only brother. Or someone’s only best friend. And that makes us very special indeed.

So rather than spending our energy trying to be special to the big world of 8 billion that has never heard of us, we should try to be extra special to the people who already know we are.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

As I was cruising through traffic on my commute, the sound of the highway kept creeping in. So I turned up my music to drown it out.

You can probably hear the sound of the highway right now. It’s tires rushing along concrete, it’s cars bumping over the road’s imperfections, it’s engines roaring. And it sounds about the same everywhere.

But if you were to go into each of those vehicles on the highway, you would hear a self-contained world. Some are listening to classical music. Some are tuned into sports talk radio. Some are bopping to the latest pop hits. Each of us trying our best to drown out the sound of the highway.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow tells us that the “hurrying hoofbeats” of Paul Revere’s midnight ride will echo “through all our history,” leading Americans to always meet our problems “with defiance and not…fear.”

It was true in 1860 when Longfellow wrote the poem to encourage the Union cause against slavery and succession. And it was true 70 years later when Grant Wood painted The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere at the beginning of the Great Depression. And still true the next year at Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s inauguration when he reminded Americans that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

And may we still hear those hoofbeats today as we face new problems with the same resolve and single-mindedness that Paul Revere showed on that night.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt