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Dear _______,
I beg indulgences as I reminisce. I suppose it’s alright to tell you now that I used to be a high school student myself, at
one point. I know, I know, it’s hard to believe that I was young once, with my current afflictions of unpredictable facial
hair and the inability to meander around a room and not accidentally slam into a radiator. But I was. And because am
admitting I was in high school, I suppose I can tell you I was a senior. And I suppose you already suspected: I graduated.
And on the day of my graduation, my English teacher handed me a letter. On the surface, it was a letter thanking me for
a gift I had bought him. Mr. Parent was – still is, in fact, in the echo chamber of my memory – a towering intellectual
giant. I see him standing there, in our room in the basement of my school, holding a piece of chalk in one hand and
gesticulating with the other. He would one day speak to us about the Fisher King legend and how it was related to T.S.
Eliot’s The Wasteland, and the next moment he’d talk about the transparent eyeball and Emerson. (And every so often,
he’d sneak Bob Dylan in there.)
Mr. Parent cast a long shadow. It wasn’t until a week ago that I had a hypothesis as to why. He was the first person I
ever met who fully embodied a life of the mind. And this man, who was so much more than a man to me, gave me a
letter at graduation. It was a meditation about the hero’s journey, which he defined as “the personally expanding
possibilities revealed in a courageous life journey bounded by and aware of entropic time.” And how I fit into that. And
how he fit into that. And how we all fit into that. Because we are all on a hero’s quest, whether we know it or not, but
knowing it makes the journey so much more.
As the years went on, the letter stayed pressed between the pages of my yearbook. Each time I’d move, from New
Jersey to Boston or Boston to Los Angeles or Los Angeles to New York, I’d come across it and sigh and be temporarily put
off kilter by crashing waves of nostalgia. And then – then! –nearing the end of my first year of teaching I remembered I
had this letter. Inspired, I wrote my own letter to my seniors.
Now: a disclaimer. I know I am not a Mr. Parent to you. I will not loom large in your mind and I will not cast that long
shadow. I am not an intellectual giant, and you are not me‐in‐high‐school. Any claim to gravitas I may have had with you
was destroyed when I professed to like Justin Bieber. Trust me, my hubris is in check. And yet, I can’t help but think: I
still have something to offer you. It may not remain ensconced in your yearbook for decades, but it may give you a
moment’s pause. I’ll take that.
This year, in the beautiful newly‐renovated science room, I enrolled you in an experiment. You were the first class where
I tried out a new grading philosophy. The foundation of it was: learn! Simple. I wanted it to be different than other
classes. I didn’t want the weight of high stakes grades hanging above us like a Sword of Damocles. I wanted our time to
be centered about the learning process, and the joyful experience of seeing something new, something counter‐
intuitive, something philosophical. I mean, we zoomed into functions and saw that curves became lines. We zoomed in
an infinite number of times! And we added an infinite number of infinitely thin rectangles – and we found areas.
Calculus is astounding, when you can leave the algebra aside and think about the ideas. And the fact that calculus can be
used to describe all motion! All of Newtonian physics can be described and analyzed through it – and Newtonian physics
describes the whole world. Electromagnetism, planetary motion, air flow under the wings of planes, the hypnotic swirls
of cream in a hot cup of coffee… At heart, calculus is about things changing – rates of change. Things change in the
world. Calculus is the basis to understanding that at a deep level.1 Calculus above all!
Last year in my letter, I said something which I can’t help but repeat.
1
Of course, we learned the math describing the change. We’ve built up our toolkit. To see calculus used In The Real World by Real
People we’d need a second year to really play around with our toolkit.
I wish I could say that I was the best teacher for each and everyone one of you. I wish I could say that I have convinced
you to love math, or at least appreciate it a little bit more, than when you entered. I wish I convinced you that math isn’t
about natural ability and isn’t about being smart and isn’t about algebraic manipulation, but instead that it’s about
curiosity and dedication and the ability to work through frustration for that amazing feeling of accomplishment when
you have that breakthrough. But I’m a realist on this front. I know that I probably haven’t succeeded on all counts. But if
you felt just a little, even once, that you had a true “ah hah, woooow!” moment, hold onto that. Because that is what
math is, when taught right.
I hoped that by taking you out of the high stakes environment, and into a place where you could learn, make mistakes,
and grow from them, you’d have less stress and start to appreciate calculus for calculus. You’d recognize your own
potential, and what it takes to reach it. That was my hope.
I don’t think the experiment was a failed experiment, but it wasn’t a total success either. I know for some of you, it
became a game of points (“how many more points do I need to get a C?”) instead of some internal motivation to master
calculus. I know some of you could have reached your potential, but didn’t – because the consequence of not learning
the material was not consequence enough to motivate you to do your work. And I know some of you breezed through
the course without a care in the world, and I wasn’t able to challenge you the way you needed to be challenged.
So for all the places that I failed, let me tell you my own meditation, in the same vein of Mr. Parent, and what I hoped
you would get from this class but you probably didn’t:
I was born not knowing, and have had only a little time to change that here and there.
These are not my words. They were written by physicist and childhood idol of mine Richard Feynman. And they echo
the words of Mr. Parent’s meditation on the hero’s journey, “the personally expanding possibilities revealed in a
courageous life journey bounded by and aware of entropic time.” There’s so much in this awesome universe to explore,
so many books that have been written waiting to be read, so many questions that you can’t yet answer, and so many
answers that you need to question. It’s okay, when you go off to college, to get caught up in the Game of Grades. But
every so often, take a moment and remember why you are there, and the possibilities that are opening up to you.
Agonize and work hard and be frustrated – but don’t do it for the grade. Do it because you only have a little time to
change that here and there.
I am proud of you. The pleasure has been mine.
Warmly,
Sameer Shah