letters to my class

Dear Humans,

My New Year’s resolution is to stop procrastinating. To do that I have a simple rule: if something takes less than 5 minutes to do, I do it immediately.

And it turns out that almost everything in this world can be done in less than 5 minutes. Take out the trash? Done. Unload the dishwasher? Finished. Grade these math assignments? Presto!

And once you have the 5 minute tasks finished, time opens up for those tasks that take more than 5 minutes. Like helping my daughter with her 7th grade math homework. Like grading those writing assignments. Or like getting lost in a good book.

Everyone has the same amount of time. What matters is how we use it.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

Last week we wrote haiku. Counting syllables to fill each line was easy enough, but setting a scene and then turning to a specific image proved a bit trickier. Even more difficult was making that image surprising, yet somehow still familiar to your readers. 

But that’s the writer’s job: to notice the little spots of beauty and surprise in this world and point them out. And for readers nothing is more pleasurable than being shown something you’ve seen, but may not have noticed. Or that you’re seeing again in a different way.

Literature humanizes us because it reminds us that we are not alone in this world. We share it, and it is possible to see it through another’s eyes.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

My daughter put together a lot of LEGO sets over the break. And while she was putting together a garbage truck, she pointed to one piece and said, “It’s a roller skate.” And then she used it as a door handle.

Because LEGO uses the same pieces for many different things and many different sets. I looked up the piece on the internet (because each LEGO piece has a specific number) and it’s used in over 170 sets, and as a roller skate in only a few of them.

When we break things down into their parts, we understand the whole a little bit better. But we also see that those parts can be used to create as many different things as we can imagine.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

Education is all about changing ourselves. Changing our minds, changing our habits, changing our outlooks. We take what we used to be and transform it into something new.

And nothing is more difficult in this world than changing ourselves. Just like it takes a hot furnace to forge a piece of iron into a useful tool, it takes a lot of effort to change ourselves into something useful for this world.

And nobody can do it for us. Not our teachers, not our friends, not our moms, not our grandparents, and not the influencers in our social media feeds. They can inspire us and motivate us and encourage us.

But in this life, we only ever learn the things we want to learn.

Or we learn them too late.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

Yesterday we read a poem. But not just any poem–a sonnet. Way back in the 13th century, Italian poets decided that 14 lines of metered, rhyming verse was the perfect way to express their love. 

A few centuries later, English poets continued to use 14 lines to woo their beloved, but they also included political themes. And they changed the structure a bit.

And today, poets still use the sonnet form to explore modern ideas, but they’ve pushed the form to its limit. (See the “Mooshot” sonnet that Mary Ellen Solt wrote in 1964 after seeing photos of the moon.)

Humans tell our best stories in verse. And though it will look different in the future, we’ll probably keep doing it 14 lines at a time.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

We’ve been learning about Zone Improvement Plan Codes. But we just call them ZIP Codes. The purpose of ZIP Codes was to make mail delivery more efficient. When we put things into code, they’re easier to share, move, and categorize.

When ZIP Codes first appeared in 1963, the postal service knew people wouldn’t want to write those five extra digits on their envelopes. So the postal service put on a big song and dance (even with a cartoon character named Mr. ZIP) to encourage people to use it.

And it was successful. And now, a ZIP Code isn’t just a five-digit number that helps get the mail out faster; it’s a number that roots us in the places that we live.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

We’ve read about protests movements leading to social change in America. Abolitionism, women’s suffrage, and the Civil Rights movement existed because of Americans’ Constitutional right to speak freely, especially when we criticize the government.

But other countries don’t have that freedom. When people protest in some places, their speech is censored or banned. If you’ve been following the protests in China against the country’s zero-Covid policies, you’ve seen this. 

So instead of holding up signs with slogans that will only get censored or banned, Chinese protesters have begun holding up blank pieces of paper. And even though their signs say nothing at all, the fact that they’re gathered together and holding them up says a whole lot.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

I know some of you are watching the World Cup. It’s a great chance to learn about the world. There’s a famous book from the early 2000s called How Soccer Explains the World. And it’s a great title because it’s an idea that is true.

If we pay close attention to a thing–no matter what it is–it can begin to explain the whole world.

And if you’re paying attention to the World Cup, then you can’t avoid topics like migration, money and corruption, geography, and culture. Because this is the first World Cup to take place in the Middle East. In November. In a tiny country (with a controversial human rights record) that has half as many people as Colorado.

We play our games inside white chalk lines, but the world gets in.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

Over 200 years ago, our Constitution set up a system of self-government. Today we perform a task essential to it. We vote. We have a say in who represents us and our communities.

Voting is not the only way to be involved. Susan B. Anthony was barred from voting (and even arrested for trying to do it) and she still made a difference. Our other rights–to speak out, to protest, to petition our government–can also lead to change.

But today is a big deal. Because voting is not just us marking down our own personal preference. It’s us imagining the kind of communities we want for ourselves and our fellow citizens. And that–us caring about the kind of world we live in together–is the heart of self-government.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

There have been a lot of cheating scandals in the news recently. Too-small bags in cornhole tournaments, AI-assisted moves in chess matches, and even lead-weighted walleye in fishing competitions. I guess the prizes and the glory of winning are just too tempting for some people. 

But it’s important to remember that the real prizes in this world are given to us by ourselves. Other people may offer rewards and plaudits, but becoming excellent is its own pleasure. And nothing spoils it faster than cheating.

Because even if you get away with it and “achieve” something you didn’t earn, you can’t ever deceive yourself.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt