letters to my class

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

Dear Humans,

I think we mostly know the right thing to do. There’s a simple test: the wrong thing is the easy thing we want to do; the right thing is the hard thing we don’t.

And it’s strange because after I’ve spent time doing the easy thing–scrolling the internet, buying junk at Target, eating junk from my pantry–I feel tired and empty. When I’m finished doing the hard thing–washing the dishes, cutting up vegetables for a salad, helping my daughter with her homework–I feel refreshed and energized. 

You’d think the hard thing would wear us out. But what’s really exhausting is trying to convince ourselves that the easy thing is the right thing.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

Recently I’ve been reading about the Waco siege. It happened when I was about your age, and the news doesn’t always make a lot of sense when you’re 10 or 11. 

So it’s interesting to relearn about events you’ve lived through. And what you quickly learn is that things that happened 30 years ago still aren’t over. As William Faulkner said, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” We continue to live with the history, so it’s important that we try to understand it.

I imagine in 30 years you’ll still be learning about our present situations. But whether you actively learn more about them or not, you won’t be able to escape them.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

Today we’ll read “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere.” Revere’s ride (along with the rides of many others to warn of the British attack) took place in April of 1775. But Longfellow wrote his poem 85 years later in 1860. So even though the poem was about Paul Revere (with many liberties), it was also just as much about the looming Civil War.

History always works this way. People say that we just ought to look at the facts of history. But “facts” isn’t part of the word history; “story,” however, is. And the way the North re-remembered Paul Revere’s ride on the eve of the Civil War is part of that story.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

The other day I was screwing in a lightbulb and I thought about how old and lame lightbulb jokes are. And then I had a second thought about how lightbulbs aren’t actually that old at all. 

Imagine trying to tell a lightbulb joke to a medieval peasant (or a nobleman, for that case). Their only sources of lights were fire or the sun. And neither of them could be encased in a bulb. They surely couldn’t fathom an electric lightbulb.

And finally I thought about the future and how some day people will look back at me changing my lightbulb in the year 2023 and see me just like the medieval peasant–heading into a future I can’t hardly imagine.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt