letters to my class

Dear Humans,

Some days after school all I want to do is sharpen pencils. Especially if it’s been a long day and I’m feeling a little tired. I’ll set my watch for 10 minutes, put on some music, and just sharpen away.

If I were smart, I wouldn’t spend my time doing this. I’d have a student do it or a volunteer, and more wisely use my time on more important matters.

But I’m not always smart. And being smart–using the front, top part of our brain–is just one way of being in the world. Because when I feel the resistance of the turning wheels as I hold the pencil still, as I catch the scent of fresh-cut cedar, and while I hear the grinding and whirring of the machine as it does battle against the Steely Dan on my little Bluetooth speaker, my mind wanders places my smart brain would never go.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

I like to go to the grocery store early on weekend mornings. You’d think fewer shoppers would make it faster, but it’s not because the aisles are full of shelf stockers, their carts, and mountains of cardboard boxes. And though that makes it hard to maneuver, it’s interesting to catch a glimpse of  what goes into making a grocery store run.

In life we can’t see all that goes on behind the scenes. And even on those early Sunday mornings when I’m navigating around shelf stockers, I only see a small percentage of all it takes to get food on the shelves. 

So to truly understand the world, we have to use our imaginations. I think this is why Albert Einstein said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” Knowledge describes what we can see, but the most important parts are hidden and require our imagination.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

Teachers think a lot about the full moon. We’re halfway convinced it actually does something to our students’ brain–gravity pulls them, making them oblong and imbalanced–and affects their behavior.

It’s all hokum, of course. It’s based on old tales from way back when humans thought the moon gave its own light and moonlight could turn you batty. Turn you into a lunatic.

But sometimes even if a thing has no basis in fact, thinking it can make it so. And because the full moon sets early in the western sky, if you’re a teacher who’s driving to school, you can’t help but see it, as it’s just sitting up there, staring down on you, convincing you that today is going to be one of those days. And once we start thinking that, then our fate is sealed.

And though we can’t control the phases of the moon, we can control our thoughts about them.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

I watched G.I. Joe as a kid and the cartoon always ended with a life lesson and the same line, “Now we know. And knowing is half the battle.” And I always wondered what the other half was. Was it just doing? Because when you’re a kid, doing the thing that you know you’re supposed to do seems like way less than half.

But as you grow up you learn how difficult doing actually is–especially a thing you know you’re supposed to do. I should eat right, exercise, use my time wisely, and floss, but when the time comes for doing, knowing doesn’t help me much at all.

We live in a complex world full of complex people. And even if we do get to the point where we agree on what we ought to do, we’re only halfway there. And real living is in the doing.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

The world can be a mean place sometimes. Or at least it seems that way when bad things happen. But the worst things happen after the bad things. And they happen because people let those bad things convince them that the world is a mean place and the only way to survive it is through more meanness.

But the world, despite bad things sometimes happening, isn’t a mean place. And though we’ve all experienced a little meanness, we can’t let it turn us into mean people. Because then we create a cycle of meanness and we cause more bad things to happen. 

So we have to be a little bit foolish and a little bit vulnerable. And we have to know that sometimes we’ll get burned. But when that happens we can either add ourselves as fuel to the fire of meanness, or we can step away from the flames.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

I’ve pulled into my garage thousands of times. At least once a day for years and years. And yet I’ve still clipped my mirror, every once in a while I’ll bang my door on the wall I parked too close to, and about once a month my wife comes in from the garage and says, “You parked like a real moron out there.” 

If I were smart I’d get some sort of parking aid: hang a tennis ball on a string from the ceiling, place a parking mat on the floor, or mount one of those parking assistant lasers on the wall.

Because being smart starts with humility. It means knowing our limitations and knowing when to ask for a little help. But rather than doing that we too often rely on our own woeful skills. Rather than ding our pride, we ding our car doors.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

I’m not sure it’s that important that you learn the phases of the moon. I can count on one hand the number of times someone has asked me when the next full moon is. Most adults don’t know what the current moon phase is because it’s not important to our lives.

But the process of learning it is important. The lunar cycle is just a system. It’s a phenomenon that exists because of complex interactions between different parts. And learning that–figuring out the rules that govern a system–is something that you will spend the rest of your life doing.

So we’re practicing. And, when you’re older and look up and see a waning gibbous moon and can explain why it looks like that, you’ll feel the satisfaction of knowing a thing–even if it might not be that important to your life.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

I play cards with my dad and brothers and I really, really like to win. And I really, really hate to lose, especially to my brothers.

But when I do win, it’s usually because of luck or my opponent’s mistake. And that doesn’t teach me much about the game. In fact, sometimes when I win I’m not sure how it happened at all. Often the only lesson we learn from winning is “Hey, that worked! I’ll keep doing that.” Which can often lead to disaster with the next shuffle of cards.

But when I lose, especially when I lose a tough hand, I learn a lot. I’m more likely to see what went wrong and think about what I need to do differently next time.

If we’re reflective and willing to learn, losing is the best teacher. As much as it might sting.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

The other day my daughter said the sky looked just like a painting. And it did–fluffy white clouds stacked up against a blue sky like they’d been put there by a paint brush.

And to think those incredible clouds are nothing but water vapor condensed on particles of dust in the air. That we see beauty in such simple things, tells us that it’s something that it’s important to humans and our survival.

Because if you think about art, it too comes from simple stuff. Sculptures made of clay, paintings made of oils and clays and eggs, drawings made of charcoal. But then humans do that something that humans do: we combine it with something inside of us to make it more. More meaningful and more beautiful. Because we know that doing so is somehow essential to our survival.

Sincerley,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

Over the weekend we celebrated my daughter’s birthday. We went out to a restaurant she picked and she got a Dr. Pepper (her favorite drink) and then her first Boba Tea (which is not her favorite drink) and finally she went shopping and added to her extensive collection of oversized sweatshirts (so maybe she’ll stop stealing mine).

And it was a great evening and she felt like the center of the universe.

Which made me think what a good thing it is that we only have one birthday per year.

Because though we are the center of the universe for a small circle of people, so is every other person on our globe (or at least they deserve to be). And the vast, vast majority of people on Earth will never meet us or even think about us. That truth doesn’t make us any less special; it just means that our specialness is an unearned gift and it is not unique.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt