letters to my class

Dear Humans,

Wordle is all the rage. It’s the first thing I do each morning. And, for the first few hours of my day, every time I blink, I see those little gray boxes.

Wordle is all about patterns. And that’s because words are all about patterns. There’s a lot of five letter words in English, but not that many patterns. If you know the patterns, you’ll do pretty well.

I talk about patterns all the time in class. “Do you see the pattern?” “Look for the pattern.” You’re probably sort of sick of it. And I don’t just talk about patterns in math class. It’s also inherent in our language and history and science.

If you can see the patterns, then you can see the future. If you can see the patterns, then you know how things work and can make those things work for you.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

Yesterday I hurried home after school to shovel my driveway before the sun got too low in the sky. Because the most important thing about shoveling your driveway is that you give your shoveled driveway some time to soak up the sun and become completely dry. 

We can only do so much with our dinky plastic shovels and weak backs. The best we can hope for is to move the snow around a little. The sun is what actually takes it away–with a little help from us with our dinky shovels and weak backs.

There are things in this world that are much more powerful than us. The best thing we can do is align ourselves with them.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

Yesterday we learned about Casmiri Pulaski and Thaddeus Kosciuszko and other American allies during the American Revolution. And maybe you’re wondering why we’re learning about two guys from almost 250 years whose names we have a lot of trouble pronouncing.

Well you only have to look at the front page of any news website to see that there are troop build-ups at the Ukrainian border. And the United States is trying to figure out the best way to ally with Ukraine without causing too much harm. 

And when nations face problems, history matters. Because we don’t just think about our interests and practical goals and act accordingly; we also act according to who we think we are as a country and people. And that is created by how we understand our history.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

I bought donuts yesterday morning and I had a vocabulary problem. I wasn’t exactly sure what you call all those variations of fried dough and sugar and I was left doing a lot of pointing, grunting, and gesturing. 

I knew long john, of course. (Though I think some people call them bars.) But there’s a variety of long johns. Cream filled or not cream filled. Chocolate, vanilla, or maple icing. And I knew the twist, but there was a cinnamon twist, glazed twist, or raspberry twist. 

We live in a rich world of abundance. Variety is the rule. To navigate that world–to fill our box with the donuts that we want–we have to have the words to describe it and communicate it with others. So we use precise language, not to be right, but to be clear.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

If you only know one way of doing something, you might be able to get by. You might be able to get a good job and do your taxes and get dinner on the table. Because oftentimes knowing how to do it one way is good enough.

But humans aren’t meant for just good enough. We’re meant for more. We’re meant to create new ways of doing things. And the only way you’ll ever do that is if you know the old ways very, very well.

So get the right answer. But that’s just the start. Also think about how you got the answer, how others might get the answer, and any other undiscovered ways of getting it. 

And then you can start asking if we’re even asking the right questions.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

Ken Kesey has my favorite quote: “We can count how many seeds are in the apple, but not how many apples are in the seed.”

You have to believe that you’ll be more than your inputs: more than the houses you were raised in, the schools you were educated in, the cultures that surrounded you. Those things are important and instrumental, but they are not destiny.

Because there’s something special in each person. Some people call it a spark or a personality or some people even call it a soul. I call it an apple seed. But it doesn’t really matter what you call it. It’s something inside of you that can grow beyond the limits that exist outside of you.

If you let it.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

As a father, I have drawn a lot of baths. I’ve sat on the edge of the tub, tested the water, stirred, adjusted, tested, adjusted, stirred.

And there are a lot of ways to draw a bath. You can try to get the temperature perfect coming out of the spout or you can start scalding hot and cool it down or start cool and heat it up. It doesn’t really matter. All that matters is the final temperature when the bather dips their toe.

This is true for most of life: There are many ways of doing a thing. Instructions, algorithms, and recipes are nice and sometimes necessary. But usually when people talk about “the right way” of doing something, they really just mean “their way” of doing it.

You’ll know you’re really getting it when you see the whole picture well enough to come up with “your own way” of doing it.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

My wife and I organized our kitchen this weekend. We cleaned out cabinets and drawers and spice racks and pantries. And now everything has its place and everything is in its place (at least for now).

But we didn’t touch the junk drawer. Because you can’t organize the junk drawer. The junk drawer exists outside the rules of organization. It’s where you put things that don’t quite fit anywhere else. 

And yet, the junk drawer is the first place you look when you really need something. The manual for the humidifier you bought a year ago. A paper clip to reset your modem. The precision screwdriver to fix your glasses. The pumpkin carving tools you use the Saturday before Halloween. The sterling silver napkin rings for the special occasion.

Sometimes things in life don’t fit in the categories we assign. That’s where you find the good stuff.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

Sometimes when I’m writing, I’ll delete an entire section and rewrite it from scratch. I remember the things I want to say, but I just want to say it in a different way. Instead of revising it a word at a time, sometimes it’s helpful just to start over. 

But that takes a lot of faith. That you’ll remember the good stuff that you deleted. And that what you come up with next will be better than what you had before. Because the blank page is a scary thing.

And that’s true in life too. Each day is like a new draft that we start on a fresh page. A lot of what we write might be the same as the day before, but the new day presents a chance to say it in a new and better way.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

Esterdayyay we learned the basics of Pig Latin. It’s useful if you want to suss out any secrets adults are trying to keep from you while you’re in the room. It’s also just fun. Because playing around with language is always fun. 

But my daughter pointed out another advantage while we were having a Pig Latin conversation on the way to her dance class last night. “When you speak in Pig Latin,” she said, “you really have to think about your words before you say them.”

Wouldn’t it be great if we all spoke in Pig Latin just so we thought about our words before we said them? Even though we’d sound a little goofy at first, I think we’d all start talking a lot more sense.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt