letters to my class

Dear Humans,

I have bookshelves full of cookbooks. Probably dozens. And each one holds hundreds of recipes. And occasionally I’ll look through the colorful, glossy photos of extravagant and healthy meals that I could make. And sometimes when I’m making my grocery list, I’ll convince myself that I’m the type of person who could make those kinds of dishes. 

But when it comes time to actually create a meal that I will feed to my family on a Wednesday evening, I pretty much always make the same small number of things. Because they’re easy. Because I’ve made them a million times before. And because–though they might not taste great–I know they won’t taste bad.

Change is hard. And change comes slow. But the cookbooks are still there on the shelves. Little kernels of hope.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

The best gift someone can give you is their trust. I tell you all the time: adults want to trust you. Your families, your teachers, and society at large all want you to make your own decisions and become independent people. The whole point of childhood is learning and practicing how to do just that thing.

Because human beings are made for freedom. But we also have responsibilities. And the purpose of that freedom is so we can find our own best ways to uphold those responsibilities to other people.

But if you fail to uphold your responsibilities, there will usually be someone there to hold you accountable. And as you get older, those people are a whole lot meaner than your schoolteachers, and the consequences are a whole lot more serious than recess detention.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

As a kid I spent a lot of time thumbing through football cards. And those football cards–tiny little books full of information–told me almost everything I needed to know about a football player: their position, their height and weight, their statistics, and where they went to college. 

Because each season has over a thousand players making tens of thousands of plays, and the only way to be able to make any sense of it all is to break it down into the important parts.

We do the same thing as scientists. We know things in the world by their properties. By their shape and color and mass and density and many, many others. This not only allows us to see things and know things (even when they’re hiding), but to communicate with others about this shared reality we call life.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

One of the best things about getting older is that you get to watch documentaries about events that happened during your lifetime. And then you think back on your own memories of these events and compare it to the historical record and you think, “My memory of this is completely wrong!” And, “Did we really dress like that?”

Because we’re just one set of eyes among billions. That doesn’t mean our own experience is worthless. I remember what it felt like to sit in my dorm room and watch news coverage on September 11, 2001, and that’s a valid experience. But it’s only meaningful if I connect it to the experiences of other people in other places. And that’s what history–the combination of many perspectives of the past–allows us to do.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

“You get what you get and you don’t throw a fit.” That phrase has probably been around for a long time, but I first heard it when I was working in a school. One kid said it to another kid who had his heart set on a grape ice pop but got lime. And I thought, “Wow! That’s some wisdom right there!” 

Because most of what we get in life–like that lime ice pop–is a gift. And gifts are different from rewards or exchanges because gifts have nothing at all to do with what we deserve. Gifts are given freely out of kindness, and that’s how they should be received.

And the great thing about gifts is that the world is full of them. They’re everywhere, if we keep our curious eyes and grateful hands open and our complaining mouths closed.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

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