letters to my class

Dear College Strivers,

This week March Madness begins. That’s a college basketball tournament that happens every year. There’s a lot of chance involved in this tournament, and people enjoy filling out brackets and trying to predicts who will win. This year, my college’s team is in the tournament, so I’m really excited to watch the games.

When I was your age, I used to wake up early on the Monday that brackets came out and would fill out my bracket before school started. I’d watch the games and keep close track of my predictions. I learned a lot about probability, geography, and basketball by doing this.

Life is full of little moments such as this that you keep doing throughout a lifetime.

Sincerely,

Mr. H

Dear Rational Thinkers,

Today we’ll eat a little pie. That’s because Saturday is 3/14/15 and those are the first five digits of the constant pi. In your mathematical career, you’ll learn about and use pi–to find the circumference of circles, the area of circles, and pretty much anything about circles or curves. It’s a number that shows up throughout nature. It seems to represent something important about order and chaos.

Sincerely,

Mr. H

Dear Poets,

Poets care about language. Poets care about saying things in new ways. Poets care about showing us things we have never seen before, or showing us old, worn out things in a new and exciting ways.

Today we’ll continue to read and write poems about the moon. Humans have watched the moon’s same “courtly fashion” since we’ve been around. What new things could we possibly say about it? Poets find a way.

“A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.”–W.H. Auden

Sincerely,

Mr. H

Dear Thespians,

Today the drama club will lead us in some theater games. This is a good chance to get in touch with your inner thespian. I think some of you will make great actors and actresses. I know everyone was impressed by our production of A Christmas Carol.

The important thing is to put yourself out there. Don’t worry what others will think. We have too many people who try to fit in. The world belongs to courageous risk takers who refuse to stay in their comfort zones.

Sincerely,

Mr. H

Dear Timekeepers,

It was a lot darker when you woke up this morning and came to school. Last week, I had to wear sunglasses during my commute to work, but today they stayed in my pocket. And tonight when you go to bed, the sun might still be peeking over the western horizon.

We base our lives around natural patterns, like the sun rising and setting. We’ve created cultures and technologies (such as time) based on these patterns, so it’s no surprise when we tweak them to try to make them better. Whether you like daylight savings or not is a personal opinion. Maybe the extra hour of sunlight this evening will convince you that it’s a good thing, or maybe you hated this morning so much that you’ll never think it’s worth it.

Sincerely,

Mr. H

Dear Performers,

Today we’ll take our Unit 7 math test. It’s over fractions with some review of multiplication and division. These are concepts that we’ve explored deeply and that you know well. Now it’s time to show it.

I get excited when I see a fresh stack of math tests to grade, especially when I know my class understands the concepts, knows how to apply them to solving problems, and takes pride in the work they do. You literally put your name on the top of this test. Anytime you put your name on something, it represents you, so you want to make sure it’s something you’re proud of.

Sincerely,

Mr. H

Dear Readers,

I just started a new novel by one of my favorite authors. Throughout your lifetime of reading you’ll meet favorite authors and look forward to their new books coming out. You’ll mark the publication date on your calendar and wish the days would skip ahead. Later, after endless waiting, you’ll see that it’s ready for you at the library or the bookstore, and you’ll rush there to pick it up. And finally, at long last, you’ll hold the book in your hands, run them over its cover, and smell the new pages before rushing out the door to get home to read it.

Novels combine various experiences of the world into one coherent story. Think of all the people we met and places we went with Edward Tulane: a fine house on Egypt Street, the bottom of the sea, the home of a fisherman and his wife, a garbage dump, tramping around with a hobo and his dog, a ramshackle cabin with two young children and an abusive father, a doll mender’s shop, and finally, at long last, back home.

Sincerely,

Mr. H

Dear Thinkers,

Today we’ll do some experiments to explore concepts of probability. Remember, we can know the likelihood of an event before it happens, but the actual outcome won’t perfectly match the expectation. We know that a coin flip is a 50/50 chance, but if you flip a coin 10 times, you might get 8 heads and only 2 tails. However, as we add more flips, our data will get closer and closer to 50/50. Keep this in mind as we do our experiment today and notice how the outcome gets closer and closer to the expected outcome as we add more and more data.

We use a coin flip to decide who gets the ball first in a football game. What are some other fair ways to decide who goes first in a game?

Sincerely,

Mr. H

Dear Adapters,

Today, and for the next few weeks, our schedule will change. I think this can be a good thing. Perhaps we were getting too stuck in our ways. What’s important is that you keep an open mind, follow directions, and focus on the things you can control.

Just because something’s been done one way for a long time doesn’t mean it’s the only way to do it. There are countless right ways to do something, just as there are countless wrong ways to do something. Over the next few weeks, we’ll schedule our days in a different right way.

Sincerely,

Mr. H

Dear Reckoners,

The problem with learning about fractions is that there are so many mindless rules for solving fraction problems. These rules allow students to take shortcuts and solve problems, thinking they understand the concepts, without really knowing anything about fractions at all.

There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.

When you see a fraction you should be visaualizing a picture in your head, comparing it to 1/2, and identifying other common names for the fraction. In a fraction, the numerator and the denominator are having a conversation. Listen in to what they’re saying.

Sincerely,

Mr. H