letters to my class

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

Dear Humans,

To know a small thing really well, you have to know about a lot of big things. Currently, we’re learning about the cave rescue of the youth soccer team in Thailand from three years back. From first entering the cave until the last boy was rescued took 18 days. That seems like something that would be pretty easy to understand.

But to really understand this specific event in this specific place in the world, we have to think about lots of big things. We have to think about the geography and history of Southeast Asia. We have to think about the geology of caves and the biology and psychology of humans. And we have to think about global communication and local culture. 

And, after all that, we’ll really only know we learned anything by the quality of the questions that we’re left with when we’re done.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Scientists,

You’re scientists because you’re alive in the world. You look around and you notice things. These things might confuse you more than they make sense to you. You might have some wrong ideas about how these things happen.

But that’s okay. Wrong ideas are better than no ideas. And some wrong ideas are better than other wrong ideas. Science–that body of ideas that we currently think is correct–is built with the discarded bones of wrong ideas.

The main thing is to keep looking, keep thinking, and keep coming up with ideas–even if they’re wrong. Because the world does not easily reveal itself and its truths. And it takes a lot of wrongs to get close to being right.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

I have this Pyrex measuring cup that I’ve used so much that I’ve worn the markings off the side. I still use it, though. And I just sort of imagine that the markings are still there.

Albert Einstein said it a long time ago and I’ve agreed with it many times before, but “imagination is more important than knowledge.” In fact, I’d say that imagination is the highest form of knowledge. Because when you know something well enough, you can see things that aren’t really there.

It’s like that new Ryan Reynolds movie where he puts on those special glasses and can see things that other people can’t. That’s what knowledge does: it shows you the hidden features of our world. But it’s more hard-won than just putting on a pair of Oakleys.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

Last night I went trick or treating with my daughters. While you’re trick or treating, you’re not totally sure what you’re getting from each house. It’s dark. Maybe you’re wearing a mask. And you’re in a hurry to get to the next house.

But then you get home and in a big, dramatic gesture, you dump your entire bag of candy out on your mother’s living room rug and you start the fun work of organizing. Reese’s over there, Hershey’s over here, and the Almond Joy’s in a pile for the old people. 

Life’s kind of like that. As you’re going through it, you’re not really sure all that you’re collecting in your bag. It gets jumbled and all mixed up. It’s only in the aftermath, after it’s done, that you’re able to see what you’ve got.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

My computer didn’t connect to our projector the other day. You probably noticed because I was muttering to myself. And then I became eerily calm, like adults do when they’re at their breaking point. And you were probably thinking, “Uh oh, the teacher’s lost it!” 

I tried lots of things to fix it. Disconnecting and reconnecting. Turning it off and back on again. Downloading a display adapter. But nothing worked.

So eventually I asked IT for help. And, wouldn’t you know it, as soon as I hit send on the email, the screen blinked on and we were back in business. 

Sometimes the world is just waiting for us to ask for help. To swallow a little of our pride and show that we can’t do it all by ourselves.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt