letters to my class

Dear Coders,

We teach you to communicate with people, but throughout your life you’re going to have to communicate with machines, also. You’re going to give instructions to your phone, your car, your house, and your personal robot assistant. Either you know how to make those instructions yourself, or somebody does it for you. I vote for digital self-sufficiency!

Programming is just problem solving. And the prize goes to the one who comes up with the most efficient and elegant solution. And the big prize goes to the one who comes up with new problems to be solved.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Heroes,

Bullies aren’t real. Of course people treat other people like dirt. And often times they pick on others because of their differences. You’ve probably been the victim of some of these actions before. And that’s the worst feeling in the world.

But if you look at a bully close enough, you see the same fears and uncertainties that we all have. Nobody has it figured out. Everybody has their own lifetime of problems.

So we watch out for each other. We correct our friends when they treat people poorly. And we make sure we show the compassion that we want others to show to us. Against that, bullies don’t have a chance.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Order-Finders,

Today is pi day–3/14. Pi is the ratio between a circle’s circumference and its diameter. But it’s really a lot more than that. Throughout your math career you’ll see pi popping up all over the place-geometry, calculus, probability. It leads one to think that pi says something about the inherent order of the world.

Mathematicians keep finding the next digit of pi because it’s kind of fun. And while nobody needs to know pi past just a few decimal places, the techniques mathematicians have used to find the next digit of pi have been extremely useful. As William Blake said, “If the fool would persist in its folly it would become wise.”

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Generalizers,

We look for patterns. We check to see if the pattern always holds true. If it does, we come up with a rule to express the pattern. And then we share it with the world. That’s how math works.

In finding fractions of whole numbers, a pattern is very clear. There’s an easy shortcut. In the past, students only learned the shortcut. Now, we teach you to understand why the shortcut works. That’s so you can come up with your own shortcuts later in life.

Because if you only know other people’s shortcuts, that’s no shortcut at all.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Arguers,

All writing is persuasive writing. You make your reader believe the world you create with words. You write a story–no matter how fantastical–that contains a deep truth that your reader understands. You compose an essay arguing the smallest point–Creamy Peanut Butter is better than Chunky Peanut Butter–but you do it in a way that convinces your reader to see everything in the world from your point of view.

If the world asked questions with only one right answer, then we wouldn’t need to argue. But we know there are lots of right answers in this world, so we have to make our case.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Bird Watchers,

Nature is wasteful. It gives and gives and gives and most of it dies. Think of all the seeds in a strawberry. All the pinecones on an evergreen tree.

Out of that prodigiousness comes a variety of forms. Today at our birds of prey assembly, look of the variety that exists within this family of raptors. Think about how those forms allow ndividuals to survive. And wonder at nature’s bounty.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Polymath,

A polymath is a person who knows a little bit about everything. Benjamin Franklin is America’s greatest polymath. He was involved in publishing, politics, science, and education. Many people argue that Ben Franklin was the quintessential American: he showed the traits that makes America what it is.

Today we’ll read about this Founding Father and think about his contributions to America. And we’ll ask what Franklin has to teach us about America and Americans today.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Thinkers,

No matter what job you have when you grow up, you’re going to have to learn new things to do it. Some of you will have jobs that don’t even exist yet. So not only will you have to learn new things, you’ll have to learn things that we don’t even know yet!

Therefore, your most important job in school is to learn to think and learn to learn. It’s nice to know things about the world, and knowing things about the world can help you think more clearly about it, but most important is that you know how to know more.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Readers,

I heard a scholar talk about reading over the weekend, and he said that rather than ask what a text means, we should ask how a text works. I wholeheartedly agree.

Even the author of a text doen’t know the “true meaning” of a text she writes. So it’s foolish for us to look for it. And to be honest, figuring out how a text works is a lot more difficult and requires us to read much, much closer.

So today when we look at texts–like the Gettysburg Address–don’t just ask what it means. Ask how it works.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck

Dear Helpers,

I didn’t have a letter last Friday because I had to wish dishes on Friday morning.

I should have kept up with them, but life happens. And they accumulated, as dishes do. It’d be nice if everything went according to plans, and each day could be predictable and easy, and the sink could always be empty.

But sometimes you just have to put everything on hold and do the dishes. Luckily, 2016 gave us an extra day to try to get caught up.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck