Monday, November 1, 2010

Hope at Work in Our Schools and Communities

Way back on January 1 of this year, I wrote about how hard it is to find a hopeful news story. Since that time I have been a little preoccupied with the number of schools who are interested in working with hope and have missed many opportunities to share what I have noticed since. So when my husband passed a page from the Edmonton Journal to me this morning, like he does whenever he sees something that will elevate my hope, I decided it was time to address the letters to the editor under the heading "Growing up on 'rez' what you make of it' in today's Edmonton Journal!!   Students from Ermineskin in Hobemma wrote in response to "Ermineskin students find oasis of calm in a story place: School's steady, relentless approach held as a model for First Nations," The Journal Sept 20.

The letters written by 13, 14, and 15 year old students and especially Teisha's comment, "Just remember, it's not the place, it's the people," remind me of how I felt when students from Montana shared their artistic representations of  hope with us at the Hope Foundation some three years ago.  I remember leaving that conversation wondering how we could, as a community, work to magnify the hope that they depicted alongside the hopelessness that we so often focus our attention toward.  

The letters in today's Edmonton Journal, represent, in my opinion, an example of how applied hope, or in this case, 'paying attention to hope', which is one of five hope-focused practices in the Nurturing Hopeful Souls resource, enhances quality of life for both the students, community members and those who live outside the community.   I believe the letters ask us to consider what and who nurtures the hope(s) of ALL students and how we might contribute to their hopes from the perspective of what is meaningful to them.  

Monday, September 13, 2010

Working With Hope


 Audrey, who is a good friend and mentor to me, sent this podcast http://www.cbc.ca/podcasting/includes/tapestry.xml  with a note to me that said, "Although not complete as it did NOT include the Hope Foundation of Alberta http://www.ualberta.ca/HOPE/, CBC radio had an interesting discussion on HOPE today."

Listening to this podcast I thought about a comment I heard from an individual who participated in a teleconference that I presented last week on hope and resilience to mental health professionals working in schools who said, "Imagine what it will be like in ten years when we won't question what it means to work with hope-focused strategies."

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Newspapers as Vehicles of Hope

"I had to read to page seven in the newspaper today to find a good news story."  I hear comments like this from Bart regularly at the breakfast table.  I choose not to read the paper, but look over the headlines from across the table to see what I need to know as a way of keeping myself up to date. 

I am not burying my head in the sand or pretending that horrible things are not happening on our streets and homes.  I believe, instead, that it helps us to work toward solutions when hopeful actions, thoughts, feelings, and relationships are made visible and accessible.   

This leads me wonder if more people, like myself, would read newspapers, if like Bart suggested, the good news story had been placed on page one.  

HOPE WEEK (February 1 - 6) would be a great time to experiment.  What do you think?