letters to my class

Dear Writers,

Good writers come from every country and background, good writers come from every language, and good writers come from every genre of writing. There are many, many ways to be a good writer. But I think there are quite a few things that all good writers do and probably the first one is this: Good writers are specific.

The world is so big and there’s such a mind-blowing amount of experience. To turn that into meaningful shapes on a page seems like it’s nearly impossible. The only way you’ll ever get through to your reader is if you put specific images into their minds. If you do that, then they’ll begin to recognize their world and see themselves in the words you are writing. And that’s something special.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Breaker Downers,

When humans figured out they could use electricity to instantaneously communicate across the country, they had to figure out a code to use. First they tried to use dots and dashes to represent common phrases. Then they tried to use dots and dashes to represent words. Finally, Samuel Morse figured out that they had to break the code all the way down to letters.

By themselves, letters don’t mean anything. They only have meaning because of how we combine them. But there are infinite ways to combine them, and we can turn those meaningless parts into a meaningful whole.

So if you’re ever stuck with a sticky problem, try breaking it down into tiny pieces. That method has been serving humanity well for years.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Space Travelers,

The world of our individual lives is so small. We’re so far from the heavens and it’s been so long since the beginning. If it were only up to out weak human senses, we probably wouldn’t think there’s much out there at all.

But luckily we have our powerful human minds. Most of the universe is too small or too big for us to directly observe, so we have to use our imaginations to create images and models that we can understand.

Knowledge, observation, and data are all important to science. But imagination is more important than them all.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Humans,

Each of you is the best at something. It might be estimating angle measure, or writing poems, or taking care of your younger siblings, or turning your eyelids inside out, but everyone has a singular talent that makes them special. 

The world is a big place with lots of needs. And it needs the talent you have and it needs you to be the best you can possibly be at it. That means practice, practice, practice and share, share, share.

Don’t take yourself too seriously, but do take your talent seriously, turning it into something that makes the world a better, more joyful place to live.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Readers,

They say that truth is stranger than fiction. And that’s undoubtedly true. But maybe by reading fiction we can prepare ourselves for good living in this strange reality. Or maybe fiction can offer us a model to better understand our strange reality. Or maybe fiction just offers us an escape from it.

Regardless of its uses, good fiction is just pure fun to read. Today we’ll read a short story that will transport us to a frozen world, make us feel the pangs of conscience, and throw us for a twist at the end.

There are millions of stories waiting to be read. And even more to be written.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Geometers,

Plato (that’s him over there–>) had this saying over the door to his academy: “Let no-one ignorant of geometry enter here.” He believed the geometry could unlock the secrets of the universe: it was the language to use to figure out eternal truths.

I think he might have been on to something. In geometry, we live in an ideal world. We’re not talking about actual circles because circles in the real world are only kind of circles. We’re talking about the idea of circles. Because only in the world of ideas can we have perfect circles.

And in that ideal world, we learn to use our minds well to solve problems. And those lessons are really helpful back in the real world.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Speakers,

Your words matter. You are in control of your words, but you cannot control them after you say them.

So it’s important that you communicate clearly, truthfully, and kindly. This isn’t just important so we have a caring community. It’s important in our thinking as well. When we read, we want to share our ideas of a story clearly and concisely. When we write, we want our readers to clearly understand what we’re saying. In math, we have to explain really complex ideas. The only way to do that is to communicate clearly and precisely.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Artists,

I went to the Denver Art Museum this weekend, and it’s one of my favorite places. When you walk into the building, you can see the whole world and the whole history of the world on canvas, in bronze, and on paper.

Art is not just pretty pictures of the world. Art is about people’s ideas of the world. Art doesn’t just tell us what people saw; it tells us what people thought. So when I see this painting of Long Jakes by Charles Deas, I don’t just get to see what Mountain Men looked like. I see what people like Charles Deas thought of Mountain Men at the time he painted it.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Scientists,

That file cabinet over there has been turned into a magnet by Earth’s magnetic field. It’s not very strong, but if you take a compass to the top and bottom of it, you’ll see that it indeed is polarized.

Science is wild!

Science gives us the tools to uncover mysteries and wonders that we never could with our own human senses. Science is a means of asking questions about the world and coming up with mind-blowing answers. Science is about disrupting our false ideas of the past and creating a future that’s a little truer, a little wiser, and a little more beautiful.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Individuals,

In premodern times, people tied who they were almost completely to the group they belonged to. Peasants were peasants. Kings were kings. But then something crazy happened: we discovered the individual. Humans came up with the scientific method, they exchanged goods across the globe, and they learned to read and write. When this happened, people stopped thinking of themselves as only members of a group and began thinking of themselves as human individuals. And the world became a much better place because of it.

There is an urge to take us back to a place where our group identity is more important than our individuality. Fight against it. 

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck