Welcome to Freshman English!
Welcome to your Freshmen English class and to Willamette High School! My name is Joshua Edwards, but you may call me Mr. Edwards, or Mr. E. for short. As you’ll soon find out, I’m a very inquisitive and curious person, and so I would like to spark your bright mind with a challenging and potentially explosive question: “What is the one thing that makes humans special?” Although we could come up with thousands of answers, the most persuasive answer that I’ve ever heard was told to me by Dr. Art Pearl, Professor Emeritus of the University of Santa Clara, who said, “The one thing that makes humans special, is that every generation of people changes their environment.” How, you might ask, have people changed our world?
To illustrate some of the powerful ways we’ve changed our world, consider the following facts: 200 years ago it took the pioneers 6 months to get to Oregon by wagon from New York, 100 years ago it took 3 ½ days by railroad, and today, it only takes 5 ½ hours by jet1. Additionally, the number of people and the lives we live has drastically changed: 200 years ago, there were 5.3 million Americans, and 75% of the people who worked were farmers; the largest city was New York, with 60,515 people; women, people of color, and most adults could not vote and had few rights. In 2021, by contrast, less than 2% of Americans work on farms to feed the 333 million people in our country2. New York, still the largest city in America, has more people than our entire country had 200 years ago (8.4 million people live in New York today). Additionally, minorities and women have full rights, and there are members of congress who are female, people of color, transgender and atheist. Looking back, our world’s changed drastically!
Since we humans are capable of changing our world so quickly, then we must love learning, right?! Yes! We unquestionably do. Just ask some of the adults in our community who go to night school after working 12 hours a day in order to practice their English or master a third language. Walking home, you might pause and watch how the children across the way at Clear Lake teach each other to play wall ball, tether ball, and other games. For a real challenge, try googling “the God Particle” after school. If you do, you’ll read about a discovery by a group of scientist, including a few at the UO, who worked their whole lives to answer one question with an experiment that was so powerful, some people were afraid it might create a black hole in their laboratories that would devour the entire earth. (Relax! It didn’t –we’re still here…).
Right now, as kids all across America learn and practice new songs to become the next American Idol, we should ask, if we love to learn…. then why isn’t school more popular and fun?
In fact, famous and wildly successful people have asked this same question: the world-renowned playwright, George Bernard Shaw said, “The only time my education was interrupted was when I was in school;” or, as Mark Twain put it, “I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” Coming back to the original question though, why is that we all love learning, but not all of us love school? How can we make our class a community that everyone want to come to? How can we create a space that equally encourages all students to succeed and become informed and compassionate citizens? What do you need to know in order to grow up to change your world and make it better for everyone?
These are BIG questions. We will address them throughout the year. To start with, though, we will begin by examining the first one: How can we make a class community together that everyone wants to come to? In order to answer that question, we will look at some beautiful and inspiring creative writing with diverse perspectives about community. Once we’ve learned a few sleights of hand from the masters, we’re going to craft poems and short stories about our community that we will gift to people we’re grateful for by using technology and artwork. At the end of this unit, you’ll even get to mail your creative writing and artwork to someone you’ll dedicate it to.
My vision for our year together, is that by June we will have created a class community where everyone is equally encouraged and you feel prepared to become citizens in a democratic society where you can bring about positive changes in the world. I am excited to get to know you as a student, to help you grow as an individual learner, and to build a community that we can all feel proud of. Thank you for being here today and for bringing your excitement and enthusiasm to our classroom. Together, I know we can make this school year one filled with accomplishments and marked by extraordinary growth.
Sincerely, your Freshman English teacher,
Joshua Edwards
Citations:
- Figures on travel times can be found at:, http://www.museum.state.il.us/ismdepts/art/sadorus/Sadorus_Farm.html
- Demographic facts can be found at: https://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0027/tab03.txt
