letters to my class

Dear Humans,

My pantry is always a mess. I’ve bought and given away many canisters, wire racks, and baskets to try to fix it, but they never help. It’s because I can’t decide on a spot for everything. So I just put things back wherever I feel like they should go on a certain day.

But it’s hard to organize a pantry because I’m not sure what should go next to what. Should I put my rice on the same shelf as the pasta or should I keep it next to the dry beans? It seems like pasta and rice should go together, but rice also seems to go with beans. And what about fruit? Should I put the fruit cocktail next to the raisins and cranberries? Or should it go next to the creamed corn and kidney beans?

Making sense of the world is a complex ontological nightmare. And the pantry is only the start of it.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Humans,

This weekend my family drove north on I-25 and there was a lot of road construction. It was stop and go all the way past Ft. Collins. And I loudly complained about it. And yet there I was driving on a road that itself had just recently been constructed. Without these same types of delays every few years, I never could have been driving on this road at all.

Thinking about this didn’t make me feel much better, but it did put a grin on my face. And it did remind me that the world that we live in is a whole lot bigger than our present experience of it.

Knowing this doesn’t doesn’t get you to your destination any faster. But it does help you enjoy the journey.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Humans,

When I was a kid I read the almanac all the time. Nothing made me happier than a list of the longest rivers in the world. And while many of those facts are the same–like the longest rivers–a lot of them are very different.

There are probably many adults like me walking around who would be shocked that the global population is almost 8 billion people. Because when I was in school, I learned that it was about 6 billion. When my parents were in school, they probably learned that it was about 3 or 4 billion. When my grandparents were in school, they learned that the world population was 2 billion.

We teach you the facts whenever we can. But the truth is that the facts change all the time. So we also have to teach you to think about the forces that drive that change and how to think and live in a world that doesn’t stay the same for very long.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Humans,

When I finish washing dishes and cleaning up the kitchen, I feel a very specific and strange good feeling. I’m a little tired, but I’m also very proud of what I just accomplished. I look over my recreation of a sparkling kitchen and let out a proud sigh.

So it’s weird that I can’t ever seem to remember that good feeling. Because the next night, or even a few hours later, when the dirty dishes pile up on the counter, I look over at them from my comfortable spot on the couch and want nothing to do with them whatsoever.

Life isn’t just about knowing the right thing to do. I think most of us know it most of the time. Life is about convincing that lifelong enemy of ours that we should do it.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Humans,

My family drove up to Platteville on Saturday to visit Fort Vasquez. Two fur traders opened Fort Vasquez in 1835 to try to sell and trade furs with natives and other trappers in the areas. It had a convenient location on the South Platte River, but soon other forts would come in to provide competition, and in coming decades hunters would over hunt the furs, commercial tastes would change, and the railroad would come to down.

In the five years it lasted, before it was buried by history, Fort Vasquez attracted traders and goods from all over the world. In the 1930s, the Works Progress Administration rebuilt the fort. (A lot of the old forts I’ve visited are re-constructions). Twenty years later, the reconstruction was almost torn down during construction on Highway 85, but local historians saved it.

And now it sits right in the middle of the highway. It is the strangest location for a museum I’ve ever seen. But it reminds us that history exists within our world. You can’t wall it off from the semi-trucks whipping by at 65 miles an hour, carrying goods from all over the world to their final destination.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Truth-Seekers,

The internet is a petri dish of rumors. It’s where they go to spread and propagate. And you can find pretty much any truth you’re looking for here. So what you have to have is a nose for nonsense. And the best way to develop that is to learn how to criticize yourself.

Simply stated, the more you want something to be true, the less likely it is to be true. If a rumor makes you look like a hero and your opponent a fool, it’s probably not totally true. That doesn’t mean that your point of view is false or invalid. It’s just that the truth is more complex than that.

If you have a strong sense of what you believe and an equally strong willingness to revise it, then the internet is the world of information at your fingertips. But if you’re stuck believing one thing is true and you can’t ever change your mind, then it’s just one big trick. And you’re the mark.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Humans,

For a while I was always putting a clip on my opened bag of tortilla chips. And it was amazing how fresh and crisp the chips stayed. But then, for some reason, I just stopped clipping the top of the bag. Maybe I lost the clis or I was too lazy to put it back on after I enjoyed my chips and salsa, but I no longer clip my chip bag.

And it turns out that though fresh chips are good, slightly stale chips ain’t too bad either. And the truth is that my bag of tortilla chips is usually gone before they have much time to go stale anyway.

All of our choices have consequences. And while living the good life is mostly about making the better choice most of the time, the good life is also about living with the consequences when we don’t. A lot of life is like eating stale chips and enjoying them anyway.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Humans,

As I’ve stood in the shower reading shampoo bottles, I’ve long thought they claimed to do more than they really did. Revitalizing? Purifying? Naturalizing? These are made up words.

And then I read an article about soap operas and soap marketing. Did you know we call them soap operas because they were originally used as soap advertisements? Commercial soap became a hot seller early in the 20th century at the same time that mass-marketing through radio and TV became possible. And a lot of those advertisements tried to convince us that we were dirty and a little bit ugly and only soap could make us clean and beautiful.

My favorite cliche is “If something’s too good to be true, it probably is.” If someone promises you something will revitalize or purify or beautify, if someone tells you that something is a miracle cure that will fix your life, you should give it a second, and then a third, look. And maybe keep your money in your pocket.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Humans,

School is going to look a lot different this year. Schools have always been changing to reflect the society they’re a part of. But this year and in the years to come, I think we’re going to see big changes, because we’re going to see big changes in society.

This is how change happens. It’s not gradual. It’s not all going in one direction. And it’s most definitely not predictable. Big disruptive events happen–like pandemics–and they change ways we live in ways that we cannot even notice.

But I find that during this time of massive change, I keep thinking back to the core values of what’s important to me. So I’ve been thinking about the purpose of school and my job as a teacher. Because no matter what changes happen in the world, those core values will stay the same.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Humans,

I was re-watching Karate Kid II the other day and it’s sort of famous for including scenes of a traditional Japanese tea ceremony. Hollywood cuts some corners and probably used it more as a plot device than to explore the true history and nature of the Japanese tea ceremony, but it was my first exposure to the idea of a tea ceremony as a kid.

I’m not much for tea, but I do drink coffee everyday (usually multiple times a day). And the other morning when I was preparing coffee I spilled hot water all over the place and burned my foot. I’ve made coffee thousands of times, but one time when I wasn’t paying attention I burned my foot.

There are many reasons for ceremony. But one thing ceremony does it make us pay attention to the mundane things we do everyday. And I can’t help but think if I had been a little more ceremonious—if I had been paying attention to my coffee making—I wouldn’t have burned my foot.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck