letters to my class

Dear Humans,

We’re encouraged to use the old-school Riso machine in the work room instead of the newer copy machine because the old one’s cheaper. And that’s fine because it works…most of the time. But death, taxes, and copy machine jams.

I know every nook and cranny where a jammed piece of A4 might hide in the new copy machine. But the old machine is a mystery to me. So when it gets jammed, I walk away and revert back to the new one.

To really know something well, you have to know how to fix it when it breaks–or at least how to go about getting it fixed. When you learn to drive, you learn to change a tire and jump a battery. Because true knowledge is knowing what to do when what we normally do just doesn’t do anymore.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

I have this “shacket” that my wife bought me. It looks and fits like a shirt, but it’s a little bit heavier and pocketed like a jacket. And I love it. It’s my favorite thing to wear. 

Brunch is the best meal at the day (especially when it’s in addition to a first breakfast) because it’s quick and easy to make like breakfast, but a little bit heartier like a lunch.

Some sort of magic happens when we combine things. And it’s not just because of the combining. It’s because before we combine these things, we have to stop and think about what makes each thing special. And then we take that thing–the pockets on a jacket or the runny eggs of breakfast–and bring them to something else.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

Changing your mind is a very good thing. Minds are made by changing and made to be changed. Our brains are connected to ears and eyes, and as the changing world comes in, our thoughts–how we make sense of the world–should change as well.

But we shouldn’t expect those changing minds ever to land at their final destination. We don’t change our minds so we can be right or so we can be certain. We change them so we can better understand the world we live in.

Because minds are just like light bulbs. We don’t change lightbulbs because the new lightbulb is the right lightbulb or the true lightbulb or the last lightbulb we’ll ever need. We change them simply so we can better see the world around us. 

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

On Friday you got your report cards. The important thing to remember about your report cards is that what’s on them is just numbers. (You’ll start getting letter grades next year.) And those numbers are only attempts to describe the path that you’ve traveled so far this school year.

But just because you’ve walked on a path this far doesn’t mean you have to stay on that path. The path you’re on now is not your destiny. It’s true that many people, for better or worse, stay on a few well-trod paths. Because those paths are clear and the walking is easy.

But the world is a jungle. Knowledge is a map to the unexplored. And your will and want are machetes in your hand, ready to clear a path to anywhere you’d like to go. I’ll hold the torch for you. 

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

You need a ticket to get into most of the places you’ll visit. Buses, planes, games, museums, the movies. No ticket, no entrance. But here we are, born into this world, wandering around and bumping into things, and all without a ticket. 

But to really belong, to really make the world feel like it’s yours, you do need a ticket. And that ticket is knowledge. Because to really belong to a place, you have to know about it.

That’s how I feel when I look at the climate zone maps we’ve been studying. All these far flung and unique places, and yet we have a system to understand them and make sense of them. And doing that–making sense of this strange and wonderful world we inhabit–is how we punch our ticket for full admission.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

I love my backpack. I think it’s all the compartments and pouches. It makes me feel prepared for anything. Oh, you have an owie and need a band-aid? Boom, here’s a first aid kit. You need a pen to sign something? I have one in this nice little pen sleeve. Too dark to see? Mini-flashlight deployed.

Backpacks are sort of like our minds. They come to us with a variety of pouches and pockets, but it’s up to us to pack them in a way that makes them useful. And while not all backpacks are the same–some are high-end with lots of doodads and whatsits, some are a bit more basic–what really matters is what we put in them, how well we organize it, and how quickly we can retrieve what we need.

And they all end up with crumbs in the bottom of them eventually.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

I bought a book at Goodwill on Saturday that was basically an entire history of the World. Of course, it’s not all there. But a lot of it is. The story of how we got where we are now. The story of what life used to be like, how it’s changed completely, and how it’s still exactly the same.

And it was only $2! Back in medieval times, scribes used to scriven for days and weeks on just one copy of a book. Such a book (which couldn’t even have been written because nobody knew all that we know today) would have been worth its weight in gold. And I got it for $2.

The information is out there. It’s between covers of a book, it’s on the digital waves we search and scroll, it’s in museums. The world wants to tell its history and it shouts it out. If we have ears to hear it.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

Here’s an important thing to remember: hard work pays off. Maybe not in ways you expect. And maybe not in ways you were promised. Life is not a child’s chore chart on the refrigerator. But if you work hard, good things will happen.

And they’ll usually happen while you’re working hard. While you’re engaged and focused and lost to a task is when you’ll feel most human. Everything else blocked out, all your petty problems forgotten (the big ones too), just doing something for the pure joy of doing it.

It might not be enough to fill up your bank account or park the car you want in front of the house you covet, but hard work is the key to something much more important: finding what your individual contribution to the world will be.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

It’s easy to be nice to the people we like. Our friends, our family, people we’ve been around a lot. When we give our time or attention to them, it feels like it costs us nothing at all.

But the world is mostly full of people we don’t know, people we don’t know yet, or people we might not particularly like. And they probably feel the same way about us. 

And this entire undertaking of human civilization depends on our ability to treat those people with respect. Those are the people we have to get along with. Not out of love or friendship, but out of a deeper connection of being fellow human beings in a shared world. Without it we’re doomed.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

I bought bread the other day and noticed a loaf that didn’t have the heel crusts. The company decided that none of their customers actually eats the heel of the loaf, so they just got rid of them.

I admit that I don’t eat the heels of a loaf unless I’m really desperate for a PBJ and that’s all that’s left. But I see their use. Because after I lose the twist tie to the bread bag (and I always lose the twist tie) the heel helps block air from getting to the rest of the loaf and making a sandwich-worthy slice of bread hard and stale.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I feel like the heel of a loaf of bread. And it’s nice to remember that I’m still making a contribution, small and hidden though it may be.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt