letters to my class

Dear Humans,

My hands have been really dry and chapped from all the hand washing. Lotion doesn’t help. But white petroleum jelly–Vaseline–is a miracle cure.

The problem, however, is once I slather Vaseline on my hands, I can’t do anything! I can’t scroll on my phone, turn the pages in my book, or write in my notebook. I’m stuck.

And it’s interesting how Vaseline works. It doesn’t do anything itself; it just creates a barrier that keeps all of the moisture from my hands on my hands. Then my hands heal themselves.

It feels a bit like our lives are covered with Vaseline right now. We can’t do much. We’re stuck and feel out of sorts. But maybe we can do a bit of self-healing during this time.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Humans,

Yesterday my daughter spent HOURS building a LEGO house. I probably should have made her do more schoolwork, but as a parent you learn that when your child is doing something quiet, safe, and semi-productive, you just let them be.

But then at suppertime she busted up the house she had been working on all day and threw the blocks back in the bucket without thinking twice.

And I saw that as such good practice for living. Because throughout your life you’re going to spend a lot of time building things that will wash away or be torn down. And all you’re left with the next day is what you learned in the building.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Humans,

Have you been howling at the moon at 8pm each night? It’s a thing now. I’m sure you’ve heard it. And I know my daughters have started looking forward to it every night.

Perhaps it will continue so long that some day you’ll have to explain to your children why people howl from their porches at 8pm every night. And you’ll start explaining about the pandemic and stay-at-home orders, and they’ll look at you like you’re crazy.

But that’s how history happens. We keep doing things even after the reason for doing them has stopped. And sometimes we keep doing them so long that we can’t even remember the reason we did them in the first place.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Humans,

Recently a friend gave us a mug she made, and I use it every day to measure my coffee beans. I could use any mug, but this one’s special because every morning it makes me think of my friend.

Before I was stuck in my house all the time, I hadn’t noticed all the other gifts people have given me. They’re everywhere. And each one reminds me of someone I haven’t seen in a while. They prod my imagination and empathy.

When life goes back to some sort of normal, I think I’ll appreciate gifts more. I’ll see them not just as something you use (or stash away in a closet or re-gift) but as a way to connect to those I can’t be with.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Humans,

I always have one or two overripe bananas on my kitchen counter. And before all of this, I’d often just throw them in the trash. Because I knew I could go buy another bunch at the store.

But now I hold on to those overripe bananas like gold. I use them to make banana bread. I freeze them for smoothies. I treat them with the respect they deserve.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve felt like an overripe banana sitting on a kitchen counter quite a bit over the past few weeks. But I’m lucky to have people around me who see my future in a loaf of banana bread, not the garbage. Let’s see that in one another as well.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Students,

It’s Friday apparently. Although, it sure feels different than other Fridays. But it has been great to see your faces (on a screen) and hear your voices (in the Google Classroom comments).

Even though it looks different and feels different from in-person school, you have to know that the learning work we’re doing now is the same as the learning work we’ve always been doing.

Universal schooling is a relatively recent invention. But humans have been learning since we arrived on the scene. And we do it everywhere we go: in our homes, on a screen, in a classroom, in our backyards. We are learners. It’s what we do. And there are lots and lots of ways that we can do it.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Humans,

We’re stuck in our homes. And we might be bored. But as one of my favorite authors, Robert Louis Stevenson, says, “The world is so full of a number of things, I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.”

When Stevenson’s talking about “the world” he doesn’t just mean the world out there. He means the world that each of us carry inside. That world is more than enough to keep us busy, happy, and entertained. If we tap into it.

People are running marathons in their backyards. Memorizing or writing poetry. Baking bread. Doing puzzles.

Boredom doesn’t have anything to do with our surroundings. It has everything to do with what we bring from inside ourselves.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Humans,

They say time is a gift. And that’s true in many ways. Sometimes we get the gift that we asked for. But other times we get a gift that we never could have expected.

The gift of time that the pandemic has given us is not one we asked for or expected. But we have it now and it’s up to us to use it in the best ways we can. Since I’m your math teacher, I think mastering multiplication and division facts is a good use of this time.

But there are many ways you can choose to use this time. It’s a good time to do something you’ve never had to time to do before.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Humans,

I’ve been sweeping my floor a lot lately because my children basically just hang around and munch on goldfish crackers all day.

And as I’m sweeping the piles into the dustbin, there’s always a line of dust left. I scoot back and re-sweep it into the dustbin, and it gets a little smaller, but it’s still there. I turn 90 degrees and sweep it into the dustbin from the other direction, and it gets fainter yet, but still a little line of dust remains.

Eventually I just kick the leftover dust into the air and let it fall where it may. Because I know I’m going to be back to sweeping the floor in no time at all.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Humans,

People from my generation figure out how old someone is by asking them where they were on September 11th. My parents ask people where they were when JFK was assassinated.

This pandemic will be your big event. In 20 years you’ll figure out how old someone is by asking what grade they were in during the COVID-19 shut down.

I’m not trying to find the bright side of this pandemic. There isn’t one. But this is a big event that will have big consequences in how we live and who we are. So we have an opportunity to shape that. We have the opportunity to change our lives in ways that are positive for the most people.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck