The Benefits of Experience

"Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want." This phrase caught my attention this morning, because at the moment I am having a number of "experiences". It is not unusual for me to be having "experiences" at this time of the year. It is the time of the year when we are moving from phase one of the hope-focused service-learning projects where we have been exploring hope and service to thinking about how we can bring service to others in the community through the lens of hope.

Hope-Focused Service-Learning requires a different way of being in the classroom. Teachers and students are involved in "messy learning" that is difficult to measure and articulate, but amazing to see, feel and hear as a co-learner. Messy learning has its challenges. It is not a lock step approach. It takes courage and a lot of time to incorporate, both in the classroom and in the planning. The teacher has to reflect in and on alongside the students and then use the new knowing from the reflections to facilitate new learning opportunities. And this has to happen alongside all the other things that the teacher did before we embarked on the hope-focused service-learning project. Sometimes it feels like we take ten steps back for every step forward during these experiences. And then voila there it is an outcome that we did not expect. That is one thing I have learned from reflecting on past experiences.

I have also learned that we always seem to overcome the obstacles along the way and each time I interact with a group of students and teachers who are intentionally using hope practices and activities while engaged in community service, I add one more tool, one more idea, one more wonder to my hope tool kit. Without the obstacles along the way I would not have the "experience" to feed my passion and resilience to keep going forward so that more students have the opportunity to use hope to become engaged in lifelong and life-wide learning.