letters to my class

Dear Learners,

I make pizza every Saturday night. So I thought I had it down. But then my dough was all weird this past Saturday. It just wasn’t stretchy like it’s supposed to be. So I played with it. I added more water. And I thought a lot about what I would do next time. I read books about pizza dough. I bought bread flour. And I dedicated myself to learning more about something I thought I already knew everything about.

We’re never done learning. Steph Curry still goes to practice to learn new things about basketball. Tom Brady is still figuring things out about football. The better you know something, the more you know you have to learn.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Learners,

I look forward to solving the crossword puzzle each day. But once I get into it, my fun quickly dissolves into frustration. The blank spaces stare at me and the clues mock me. But by the next day, I forget this feeling and again look forward to solving the crossword puzzle.

Engagement is not the same thing as fun. Things that require our full focus and attention aren’t usually fun–they’re beyond fun. They exist in that place where we lose ourselves and put everything we have into one task.

So lose yourself in some task today. Go beyond fun and forget everything around you. I promise it will be more rewarding.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Readers,

When you finish your schooling, your learning will just begin. Adults have to learn something new and unexpected everyday. And we don’t do it for a grade; we do it to survive.

But we have books to help. If we’re lucky enough to learn how to read them, life is a lot easier. Because books are really just other people telling us about their mistakes. If we read about them in books, then we don’t have to make them ourselves. Sometimes learning from our own mistakes is useful, but usually it’s just painful.

So in school we teach you how books work, how to read them, and how to learn lessons from them. If you learn them well, those lessons will last a lifetime.

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Humans,

My six year old just lost her first tooth. It had been wiggly and bothering her for more than a week. She had trouble eating, her mouth was bleeding, and she was always playing with it. She said to me, “Daddy, I just wish it were out.” “It will be soon,” I said. “Just wait.”

If you know six year olds, you know they need to learn patience. And I think the week-long wiggly tooth was a lesson in patience for her.

Life just seems to know the lessons we need, and it’s ready to teach them to us, if we’re willing to learn.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Thinkers,

When driving in snow like this, it’s not too much of a problem as long as the car keeps moving. The trouble comes with stopping and starting.

Our brains are the same way. And I don’t know about you, but my brain has some pretty bald tires. So I find it’s best to keep my focus on one thing for a long time rather than jumping from thing to thing. When I start doing that, I lose traction, spin out, and end up in the ditch.

Life is full of distractions that you’ll want to start and stop for. But keep your car moving–slow and steady.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Doers,

Making my bed in the morning doesn’t make much difference by itself. I’m just going to pull the covers back down later that day. But I find that making my bed each morning makes it more likely that I will do other things that help me have a productive day: eat a healthy breakfast, pick up my clothes off the floor, wash the dishes in the sink.

Little things are little things, but they often lead to much bigger things. So when you come into the classroom, make sure your area is picked up, make sure you have what you need for day. Do the little things that will help you do the big things.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Humans,

There’s a lot going on around you. And you might feel pressure to try to keep up with it all: know the latest fads, watch the hottest videos, wear the best clothes.

But trying to keep up with everything going on around you is exhausting. And it doesn’t really get you anywhere. It just makes you like a hamster on the wheel–running as fast as you can but going nowhere.

Figure out what is most important to you and focus on that. If you find one thing you do well and make that the thing that you’re always going to do well, the world will have a place for you.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Historians,

Humans use whatever we can find to make meaning of the world. And we don’t just try to make meaning of our world right now; we also look into the past to figure out what the world used to be like.

And that’s where it can get tricky. Not all cultures left behind words for us to read. Instead, archaeologists have looked at tools, especially projectile points.  And in looking at these artifacts, historians have almost turned them into a type of language. The tools tell us when people came to a place, what they ate, how they hunted, how they lived, and maybe even what they believed.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Writers,

Today we’re writing about places in Colorado that are important to us. You’re writing  about a place you’ve been to many times before, but when you write about it, you’re going to see that place in a new way. You’re going to understand that place in a way you haven’t before. That’s what writing does for us. It shows us what we haven’t seen before.

Writing also helps us take ownership of a thing. When you write about something, you’re claiming it. These places that we’ve been to many times before might just seem like places. But when we write about them, we stick our flag into their ground; we say that they belong to us.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Students,

You develop a skill. You use that skill to add value to something in the world. People pay you for the value you added to that thing.

That’s about as simple as it gets. But the key is you have to find a way to add value to something. If you’re a chef, you add value to the raw ingredients you buy from the farmer. If you’re a factory worker, you add value to raw materials by changing them into something people will buy. If you’re a teacher, you add value to your students’ time by teaching them what they would not learn if they were on their own.

What value will you add?

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck