letters to my class

Dear Learners,

If I just followed recipes, step-by-step, I could probably feed my family pretty well. But I don’t think I’d learn that much about cooking. So I try to think about what the recipe means. I look for connections between recipes, I think about categories of ingredients, and I try out new things.

And I mess up a lot.

Math is the same way. If you faithfully and automatically follow the algorithm, you’ll probably get the right answer. But I don’t know if you’ll learn much about math. But if you think about why things work and how things work (and make a lot of mistakes), you’ll get the ultimate reward of math: not getting the right answer, but knowing how to solve problems.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Learners,

Most of what you learn in life will be things you teach yourself. These lessons will be the patterns you create out of your life experiences.

All I can show you are some of the ways that other people have made sense of their experiences. I can point out a few patterns that have been useful over time. But by the time I do that, you should already have thought about your own.

Don’t wait for me, or the media, or other authorities to figure out your world for you. You have to be your own best teacher.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Fans,

The Rockies and Dodgers have played a combined 324 games this season. They’ve traveled approximately 70,000 miles. They’ve been at it for the past six months. And after all of that, they are completely and totally tied.

So it all comes down to one game. The winner of the game is the winner of the season.

In the grander scheme of things, grown men hitting a 9.25 inch sphere isn’t that important. But life offers us lots of unimportant things to pay attention to. My hope for you is that bring passion, discipline, and an active mind to whatever unimportant thing you decide to follow.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Humans,

It’s easy to accept the world as it’s presented to us. It’s easy to believe that things are the way they are because that’s how they’re meant to be. It’s easy to convince ourselves that people are supposed to look, act, and behave a certain way because of where they’re from, how they were born, or what they look like.

But if you want to make a meaningful life, you’re going to have to figure these things out on your own. You’re going to have to ask hard questions about the way things have always been. And you’re going to have to imagine another way, a better way.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Mistake Makers,

I fry a lot of eggs. When I first started, I screwed up all the time: broken yolks, too hard yolks, too runny yolks, bad flips. And I thought my mistakes meant that I just wasn’t good at frying eggs.

But I kept at it. (Hunger motivates!) And I still make mistakes, but now I learn from them. When I screw up, I think about what goes wrong and figure out ways to fix it next time. Rather than seeing my mistakes as an indictment, I see them as information.

Being good at something doesn’t mean you don’t make mistakes; it means you know how to learn from them.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Teachers,

Yesterday we talked about how we each have something to teach one another. Part of the reason that is true is that we’re all so different from one another. We have different experiences, different opinions, and different strengths. I believe those differences make us stronger, especially when we can bring them together for a common purpose.

In the classroom, our common purpose is to learn as much as we can about the world. Each one of us brings a different part of that world into our classroom. Our job is to share what we know and listen to what others know.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Learners,

I’ve been playing guitar for a long time and I’ve played guitar with a lot of different people. And I’ve found that it’s nearly impossible to compare two guitar players and say who’s better. That’s because everyone plays different styles, plays different songs, and knows different things.

But if you play guitar long enough you learn one thing for sure: everyone has something to teach you.

The same is true in our classroom. Everyone in our class has something to teach you. And you have something to teach everyone else.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Humans,

Making someone’s day might just be the easiest thing you do today. A heartfelt and specific compliment, a thank you note, or just a hello. These are all extremely easy things that any of us could do in a few seconds.

But the action behind them–that of putting someone else before our ourselves–is incredibly difficult to do. We’re stuck in our own minds, focused on our own survival and well-being. Putting others first–if only for a moment–is often the last thing we think of.

But compassion is like a muscle. Exercise it regularly and it will grow stronger. How will you do that today?

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Humans,

There’s a reason we say “pay” attention. It’s because what we give our attention to shows what we think has value.

When we buy something with money, we make sure it’s something we really want, something that will make our lives better. Well, attention is even more valuable than money, so we should spend it even more wisely.

There are distractions every minute, but you are in control. You get to decide what you spend your attention on. Will you invest it wisely? Or will you squander it on cheap junk?

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Humans,

Following the rules and doing what you’re supposed to do will get you far in life. But it won’t get you everywhere.

Life demands more than compliance. Life demands courage: to imagine a world that’s better, to imagine a world that’s more fair, and to imagine a world that treats everyone with dignity and respect. It takes courage to ask questions about the world and refuse to accept the easy answers.

Merely following the rules of the world might get you a job that pays and a car that runs, but it won’t satisfy that part of you that wants to live courageously.

Mr. Heimbuck