letters to my class

Dear Humans,

The other morning I was making oatmeal and trying to brew pourover coffee at the same time. The oatmeal boiled over and while I was trying to clean that up and thinking about impossibility of multi-tasking, I forgot about the coffee and overextracted it.

Now, that wasn’t such a big deal. I just added some extra cream. But it further convinced me that it’s impossible to do more than one thing at a time.

I think we multi-task because we fear we’re not enough. And, if we do just a little bit more, then we’ll prove ourselves. But, the truth is that if we bring everything we have to a task, it will always be enough.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Humans,

Being a kid can be frustrating. You don’t get to be in charge of much. But that’s because our society has tried to design childhood as a time when you can focus on learning how to be responsible for yourself without all the consequences that adults have to face.

Unfortunately, we’ve failed many kids and put them in places where they’re responsible for things that they’re not ready for.

But, here at school, we try our best to protect you from those things, so you can focus on learning about who you are, about the world you’re living in, and about your place in it.

That is the main thing you’re in charge of at school.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Humans,

Sometimes I worry what social media is doing to us. I know some of you say things to each other in texts and chat that spills over into the next school day. I know that people often use information to score points for their side rather than get to the truth. And I know that my own attention span has shrunk.

But last week I learned to stand my broom up on its own. So maybe it’s worth it?

Social media isn’t going anywhere. So we need to make sure we use it to be productive, safe, and kind. It gives us access to more voices and it gives us more voice, so let’s make sure we use it for good.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Humans,

My wife bought cat claw caps the other day at the pet store. A package had two sets–one pink and one black. So she put the pink ones on the girl cat and the black ones on the boy cat.

Which is kind of weird because I can never remember which one’s a boy cat and which one’s a girl cat, and I spend approximately 0% of my time thinking about our cats as boys or girls. I just call them cats.

Life often hands us a script to read and expects us to say certain things and act a certain way. Sometimes it’s helpful; but sometimes the best moments in life are when we make up our own lines.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Humans,

I was at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science yesterday looking at gems and minerals. And I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

Everything in those displays used to be swirling star dust, formed billions of years ago inside of stars and through star explosions. Then, that swirling dust formed to make our planet Earth. Through processes and cycles of heating, cooling, and geologic change, that star dust turned into the gems and minerals on display.

Then, most amazing of all, I left gems and minerals and looked out over the Denver skyline–all of which was made possible by humans digging up and using those minerals that just a few short billions of years ago used to be stardust.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Humans,

The it’s/its problem is out of control. Last week, I saw a Denver Post headline with the wrong it’s/its.

I understand the problem. The first lesson we get when we’re learning grammar is that to make a word possessive we add an ‘s. But, of course, the possessive its does not have an apostrophe in it. So it’s a little confusing.

Dear Humans,

A few months ago it seemed we never had bowls in our house. Anytime anyone wanted cereal, they had to take a bowl out of the dishwasher and hand wash it. But then we found some bowls at Ross that were plain white and almost perfectly matched our dishes.

And now, we have a whole bunch of dirty bowls, but we still don’t seem to have clean ones when we need them. It turns out the problem wasn’t the number of bowls we had. The problem was that I wasn’t washing them quickly enough.

It’s nice to have stuff. And I’m lucky that I can buy new bowls when I need them. But stuff doesn’t change who we are. Only we can do that.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Humans,

On garbage day, one of my neighbors puts out their recycling can even though it’s not a recycling week. And then another neighbor does because someone else did. And soon there’s a whole bunch of recycling cans out that will never be picked up.

First I laugh. Then I look at my trash/recycling calendar. And, even though I can see that this is most definitely not a recycling day, I think, “How can all of these people be wrong?” and I put my recycling can out just in case.

But a lot of people are wrong all the time. And though putting my recycling can out on the wrong day isn’t that big a deal, blindly following my neighbors can turn out to be a big deal.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Humans,

I like to know what kind of car a person drives; it tells you a lot about them. When you buy a car, you think about the kind of persona you’ll take on when you’re behind the wheel. So it’s a pretty good method for figuring people out.

But then sometimes I’m surprised. I’ll think, how can a person who drives a 2009 Toyota Camry do or say something like that? That doesn’t make any sense at all!

But that’s people for you. About the time you think you have them figured out, they’ll surprise you. And it’s important that we let them, even if we know the kind of car they drive.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Humans,

When I’m folding laundry or washing a bunch of dishes, I want the job to be over as quickly as possible. There’s other things I’d rather be doing. But all I can do is take it one pair of pants or one crusted-on pot at a time.

I understand the saying “work smarter, not harder” but sometimes the smartest thing you can do is just take a task one step at a time. Sometimes the smartest thing you can do is put all of your focus into the task in front of you. It may not make the task go faster, but it will make the time feel well-spent.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck