As a student driven program, Hope-Focused Service-Learning projects empower youth to demonstrate the responsible use of knowledge, skills, and attitudes in building healthy, resilient selves and communities. Youth, parents, teachers, and community members work together to increase protective factors at the individual, family and community level. Meeting genuine community needs through experiential activities creates respect for diversity. Making hope visible and accessible, while meeting genuine community needs enables participants to envision and work toward a desired and positive future. Documenting and telling individual and collective stories of the Hope-Focused Service-Learning experience makes large-scale transformations possible.
A Hope-Focused Service-Learning program is divided into five phases. In the first phase students and their teacher explore hope and service through a particular subject or across subjects. An enduring question that provides a focus for the hope-focused service-learning project that is connected to curriculum often surfaces in phase one. For example, one grade five student asked, "What does hope have to do with being a good citizen?"
In phase two, students and teachers examine how they contribute to a hopeful learning environment while building on service-learning competencies like working on a team, developing open-ended questions and deep listening skills. They also begin examining hope in the school, neighbourhood or community. In so doing, they conduct a needs assessment and then they plan, with the help of community members, their parents and teachers, a hope-focused service project with an evaluative component.
In phase three, students carry out a hope-focused service project in their community or school. Students examine how they are individually and collectively making a difference using hope as their guide. With the help of their teachers, parents, and the community members with whom they interact, students also track what they what they are learning about themselves personally, socially, academically and how that learning may influence future career choices.
In phase four students evaluate, using their hope-folio reflections, how they made a difference in the community individually and collectively. They also do a formal evaluation that is connected to their needs assessment and original hopes. Students have an opportunity to build a demonstrative e-portfolio using digital stories as one means. They also reflect on what they have learned in connection to their enduring question.
In phase five students, parents, teachers and the community celebrate what they learned and the difference they made by making hope visible and accessible in their own lives and in the lives of others in the community.
Assessment for learning occurs at all phases. Teachers, parents and students work toward and track academic, personal, social, citizenship and career outcomes. Students develop self-assessment competencies that will serve them in the future. Comments from grade five students who participated in a pilot Hope-Focused Service-Learning program speak to its importance.
I used to think why do we do service? Now I know that we do it to help others.
Follow your dreams till the end. If you have struggles hope will guide you.
If you look deep down even when you’re depressed you can find a spark of hope.
Hope is a word that means believing in you and others. Hope is related to almost everything you do, like and believe in.
Hope goes everywhere. People really don’t think about hope and they should. Hope is something that should be shared with everyone.
At the beginning of the year when I first heard that we were learning about hope, I thought why hope. We already know all about it. But now I know that what I thought before was wrong. I’m glad that we are learning about hope. It has a lot of different meanings. Hope is a very good thing. It helps you learn more about yourself.
Hope is making people happy so they can have hope. Hope can mean different things to different people. One other thing that I think it is, it is something that drives you toward ACHIEVEMENT!
Hope can be many different things. I think it is something that can help you in the future to move on in life.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Monday, April 28, 2008
The following statements were made by teachers and teacher assistants who attended a series of five professional development 'Dare to Hope' sessions over a period of seven months.
I used to be burnt out and detached, but now I am refreshed/hopeful.
I used to be overwhelmed, but now I can see each students' unique qualities.
I used to just care for, but now I know how to care with as well.
I used to have less of an idea of how to effectively build hope. Now I have community, caring, coping, creating, committing and celebrating as ways to think about building courage to take hopeful actions.
I used to think only some people needed hope.
I now think everybody needs hope, needs to be a part of hope and to keep hope at the front of everything.
I used to think that hopefulness was an indefinable term.
Now I have started to use hopeful language and hopeful thoughts in a very discrete manner.
I used to teach to, hope for, see children as needing.
Now I learn with, do, see children as giving.
I used to be burnt out and detached, but now I am refreshed/hopeful.
I used to be overwhelmed, but now I can see each students' unique qualities.
I used to just care for, but now I know how to care with as well.
I used to have less of an idea of how to effectively build hope. Now I have community, caring, coping, creating, committing and celebrating as ways to think about building courage to take hopeful actions.
I used to think only some people needed hope.
I now think everybody needs hope, needs to be a part of hope and to keep hope at the front of everything.
I used to think that hopefulness was an indefinable term.
Now I have started to use hopeful language and hopeful thoughts in a very discrete manner.
I used to teach to, hope for, see children as needing.
Now I learn with, do, see children as giving.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Promising Futures Youth Summer Camp
Well the snow days are coming to an end so it's back to finding funding for our Hope-Focused Summer Camp for approximately twenty youth from the City Centre schools in Edmonton and Montana School in Hobbema. This first ever summer camp is being hosted and facilitated by the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology and the Hope Foundation during the first two weeks of July.
Students who have been making hope visible and accessible in their personal lives, school studies and their communities will have an opportunity to learn carpentry skills, participate in daily sports and contribute to their Hope e-portfolios. We are piloting this project with a small group of Junior High students as part of our initiatives to help youth envision and move toward a future in which they can participate willingly. In addition to having an opportunity to learn many skill sets, the youth will have an opportunity to see what it is like to participate in post-secondary life.
Although we have chosen to start small this year, we do have dreams for the future. One of those dreams includes helping youth who attend becoming mentors during the school year as well as expanding the experiences to include welding, millwright, culinary arts, and even science camps.
When I was in Junior High school my mom was working toward finishing her BEd. We lived about two hours north of Edmonton so she rented an apartment on campus during the summer months. In order to keep us busy and happy she enrolled us in swimming lessons at the University of Alberta pool. Not only was I able to follow her around, but I had an opportunity to navigate my own way around campus and University life. In addition to choosing to become an educator like my mom (I helped her in her classroom whenever I could), I learned skills that have enhanced by life both inside and outside the classroom. When I did become a student in the Education Faculty some six years later I felt very confident to embark on what for many was a very scary experience.
I believe that youth who are fortunate to attend the camp at NAIT this summer and beyond will have an experience similar to mine!!
I also believe that there are others out there who would like to participate to help build on this very unique and promising opportunity. With that, I look forward to telling you how it is evolving in future posts!!
Students who have been making hope visible and accessible in their personal lives, school studies and their communities will have an opportunity to learn carpentry skills, participate in daily sports and contribute to their Hope e-portfolios. We are piloting this project with a small group of Junior High students as part of our initiatives to help youth envision and move toward a future in which they can participate willingly. In addition to having an opportunity to learn many skill sets, the youth will have an opportunity to see what it is like to participate in post-secondary life.
Although we have chosen to start small this year, we do have dreams for the future. One of those dreams includes helping youth who attend becoming mentors during the school year as well as expanding the experiences to include welding, millwright, culinary arts, and even science camps.
When I was in Junior High school my mom was working toward finishing her BEd. We lived about two hours north of Edmonton so she rented an apartment on campus during the summer months. In order to keep us busy and happy she enrolled us in swimming lessons at the University of Alberta pool. Not only was I able to follow her around, but I had an opportunity to navigate my own way around campus and University life. In addition to choosing to become an educator like my mom (I helped her in her classroom whenever I could), I learned skills that have enhanced by life both inside and outside the classroom. When I did become a student in the Education Faculty some six years later I felt very confident to embark on what for many was a very scary experience.
I believe that youth who are fortunate to attend the camp at NAIT this summer and beyond will have an experience similar to mine!!
I also believe that there are others out there who would like to participate to help build on this very unique and promising opportunity. With that, I look forward to telling you how it is evolving in future posts!!
Sunday, April 20, 2008
'Getting to Maybe' - A Book Review
Today is a snow day. I love snow days ~ even in April. I love snow days because snow days are days that I do not or cannot get outside to do the jobs that I would normally do. Snow days are days when I linger longer than usual in a good book - I am reading a few good books at the moment. 'Getting to Maybe' is one of the good books that I currently have on the go.
'Getting to Maybe' is filled with stories about individuals who have answered the call to make a difference by deliberately focusing on what cannot be controlled by intentionally working toward a particular outcome. Perhaps it is the paradoxical and yet practical nature of what the authors suggest that has me intrigued. For the book is filled with stories and strategies about and for moving toward what is possible alongside the premise that we are not in control of what is possible. Perhaps I am intrigued because standing still and leaping forward are how we have been forced to work at the Hope Foundation. Often times, we find ourselves leaping forward without knowing what the outcomes will be. In other words, we have learned to trust and use our intuitions when we see what happens when we intentionally make hope visible and accessible in our lives and the lives of those with whom we interact.
Our Hope-Focused Service-Learning program is one example of standing still and leaping forward before everything and everyone is in place. If we waited for all the pieces to be in place children and youth would miss out on what is possible in their school studies, individual lives and the community in which they live. In fact, it is children and youth who are propelling our work forward.
The authors of 'Getting to Maybe' use the explorer metaphor. It is a metaphor that I oftentimes use to describe our work. 'Getting to Maybe' describes why we need to be explorers, willing to chart our course and let ourselves be guided by forces out of our control at the same time. Hearing and seeing what is happening when children and youth have an opportunity to use hope to become meaningfully engaged in their studies and their communities fuels my hope to continue to find adults to support what is possible when hope is made visible and accessible in the lives of children and youth!!
'Getting to Maybe' provides a road map to what is possible when we think outside the box. At the end of every chapter there is a set of suggestions for those of us who are explorers in new territories. These prompts provide answers and encouragement when we are just about ready to turn back and retreat to the same old ways of thinking, feeling, acting and relating.
As Eric Young, in the forward explains,'Getting to Maybe' adequately addresses how we can move the dial on our most complex and seemingly intractable social problems and how we can be more than just anxious critics of the status quo or wishful thinkers about a better future. 'Getting to Maybe' is a resource that every explorer needs on their journeys to become actual and effective agents for large-scale transformations. It is not a book for the complacent or cynical.
The book speaks to the voluntary sector, business organizations, funding agencies, government and philanthropists. One of the ideas that transcends across the borders of each of these groups is developmental evaluation. At the Hope Foundation we are fortunate that most of our supporters recognize the importance of being able to integrate creativity and critical thinking when evaluating programs like Hope-Focused Service-Learning. To quote the authors, "Developmental evaluators ask probing questions and track results to provide feedback and support adaptations along the emergent path. This can be especially important in the explorative, reorganization phase of social innovation that looks and feels chaotic and is characterized by many false starts, dead ends and trial-and-error experimentation. Only when the ideas have crystallized can a more orderly, more predictable exploitation phase begin, one that takes invention and turns it into innovation. But if the ideas are not allowed to gestate in the reorganization phase, nothing really innovative can be born" (p. 83).
For this reason and many more reasons woven into the 229 pages, I believe 'Getting to Maybe' is a book for anyone who is at all hopeful about the future. I believe that we need complex solutions for the world we live in. 'Getting to Maybe' provides hope focused practices and strategies to solve the complex problems we face individually and globally in ways that encourage us to be both creative and courageous.
'Getting to Maybe' is filled with stories about individuals who have answered the call to make a difference by deliberately focusing on what cannot be controlled by intentionally working toward a particular outcome. Perhaps it is the paradoxical and yet practical nature of what the authors suggest that has me intrigued. For the book is filled with stories and strategies about and for moving toward what is possible alongside the premise that we are not in control of what is possible. Perhaps I am intrigued because standing still and leaping forward are how we have been forced to work at the Hope Foundation. Often times, we find ourselves leaping forward without knowing what the outcomes will be. In other words, we have learned to trust and use our intuitions when we see what happens when we intentionally make hope visible and accessible in our lives and the lives of those with whom we interact.
Our Hope-Focused Service-Learning program is one example of standing still and leaping forward before everything and everyone is in place. If we waited for all the pieces to be in place children and youth would miss out on what is possible in their school studies, individual lives and the community in which they live. In fact, it is children and youth who are propelling our work forward.
The authors of 'Getting to Maybe' use the explorer metaphor. It is a metaphor that I oftentimes use to describe our work. 'Getting to Maybe' describes why we need to be explorers, willing to chart our course and let ourselves be guided by forces out of our control at the same time. Hearing and seeing what is happening when children and youth have an opportunity to use hope to become meaningfully engaged in their studies and their communities fuels my hope to continue to find adults to support what is possible when hope is made visible and accessible in the lives of children and youth!!
'Getting to Maybe' provides a road map to what is possible when we think outside the box. At the end of every chapter there is a set of suggestions for those of us who are explorers in new territories. These prompts provide answers and encouragement when we are just about ready to turn back and retreat to the same old ways of thinking, feeling, acting and relating.
As Eric Young, in the forward explains,'Getting to Maybe' adequately addresses how we can move the dial on our most complex and seemingly intractable social problems and how we can be more than just anxious critics of the status quo or wishful thinkers about a better future. 'Getting to Maybe' is a resource that every explorer needs on their journeys to become actual and effective agents for large-scale transformations. It is not a book for the complacent or cynical.
The book speaks to the voluntary sector, business organizations, funding agencies, government and philanthropists. One of the ideas that transcends across the borders of each of these groups is developmental evaluation. At the Hope Foundation we are fortunate that most of our supporters recognize the importance of being able to integrate creativity and critical thinking when evaluating programs like Hope-Focused Service-Learning. To quote the authors, "Developmental evaluators ask probing questions and track results to provide feedback and support adaptations along the emergent path. This can be especially important in the explorative, reorganization phase of social innovation that looks and feels chaotic and is characterized by many false starts, dead ends and trial-and-error experimentation. Only when the ideas have crystallized can a more orderly, more predictable exploitation phase begin, one that takes invention and turns it into innovation. But if the ideas are not allowed to gestate in the reorganization phase, nothing really innovative can be born" (p. 83).
For this reason and many more reasons woven into the 229 pages, I believe 'Getting to Maybe' is a book for anyone who is at all hopeful about the future. I believe that we need complex solutions for the world we live in. 'Getting to Maybe' provides hope focused practices and strategies to solve the complex problems we face individually and globally in ways that encourage us to be both creative and courageous.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Hoping Hands
When I started at the Hope Foundation as Manager of HOPE KIDS, the youth who volunteered out of school to bring hope to those in care centres had difficulty articulating what exactly that meant. Over time we learned that representations of hope, like pieces of art work, 3-D models like hope trees, and graphic organizers enabled us to put words to our actions.
This led to out Hope Youth Art Project where we asked students to create 2-D representations of hope for our annual HOPE WEEK during the last week of January. This image is one of the submissions. It is a collection of students' art in early elementary. Each piece of art in itself makes a pretty strong statement about these young childrens' understanding of hope. The repetition of the images as a whole speak, in my opinion, to the power of our collective hope or the collective hope of our youth.
Resource and proposal writing have kept me away from my blog these past few days. This image which is over our couch in the living room at the Hope Foundation, reminds me of the power of our collective hope and support for each others' hope. When I am feeling overwhelmed and not sure about how things will turn out, it is this image that comes to my mind. When we put together each small step we make, each pebble we move, the mountain does appear to be movable afterall.
Every year I am more hopeful about what I see happening in the lives of children and youth as they make hope both visible and accessible in their own lives and the lives of others. Although we may have to take a break from the Hope Youth Art project next year because we do not have the resources (people to carry out the project) to make it happen, I have this image to remind me of what we did do at one time, despite the odds against it happening.
Monday, April 7, 2008
Early Hopes
When I first started paying more attention to hope and how it influences quality of life (Hope Foundation's Mission), I was often asked if we are born with hope. I would immediately think of a new born baby who looks around the world with interest, who cries to let the world know that he or she is hungry or wet or hurting. Who learns that sometimes crying helps to get what he or she needs and sometimes it doesn't and to distinguish between the two.
My husband related the following story upon his return from a recent visit to see our grandchildren. Our grandson, who is learning to walk was trying to get over to see what his older sister was painting. Every time he managed to get about two feet away from her, his mom and dad would run up and tickle him while they pulled him back and tried to distract him with something else. But he was determined. He crawled faster and faster each time looking both ways for his parents.
Then when he was his two feet away and before his mom even got up, he collapsed whimpering. His mom realized his frustration. This time she picked him up and cuddled him, talking soothingly to acknowledge his feelings. Explaining at the same time, that his sister needed her space. Because it was his bedtime, she got him ready for bed. By this time he was content to settle into his crib.
I imagine, he is going to have many more experiences like this one. He is a very determined little boy. He spends all day walking around the couch and along the walls. He does not give up easily. He loves playing with his sister. This was an unusual event because he and his sister play together for long periods of time. But there are times when she will be doing things that he is not old enough to particate in. That is one of the lessons we all learn at some point - sometimes we have to let go of a hope.
One thing is for sure. He knows he has a strong support system to turn to when he cannot attain his hopes and/or goals. If his mother had not comforted him, his father, grandfather or sister would have.
At eight months old he has already learned a lot about hope. These early learning experiences, framed by a lot of love and guidance, build his trust - both in himself and in others. Reserach demonstrates that learning to hope in trusting and loving relationships creates a strong foundation to hope from!
My husband related the following story upon his return from a recent visit to see our grandchildren. Our grandson, who is learning to walk was trying to get over to see what his older sister was painting. Every time he managed to get about two feet away from her, his mom and dad would run up and tickle him while they pulled him back and tried to distract him with something else. But he was determined. He crawled faster and faster each time looking both ways for his parents.
Then when he was his two feet away and before his mom even got up, he collapsed whimpering. His mom realized his frustration. This time she picked him up and cuddled him, talking soothingly to acknowledge his feelings. Explaining at the same time, that his sister needed her space. Because it was his bedtime, she got him ready for bed. By this time he was content to settle into his crib.
I imagine, he is going to have many more experiences like this one. He is a very determined little boy. He spends all day walking around the couch and along the walls. He does not give up easily. He loves playing with his sister. This was an unusual event because he and his sister play together for long periods of time. But there are times when she will be doing things that he is not old enough to particate in. That is one of the lessons we all learn at some point - sometimes we have to let go of a hope.
One thing is for sure. He knows he has a strong support system to turn to when he cannot attain his hopes and/or goals. If his mother had not comforted him, his father, grandfather or sister would have.
At eight months old he has already learned a lot about hope. These early learning experiences, framed by a lot of love and guidance, build his trust - both in himself and in others. Reserach demonstrates that learning to hope in trusting and loving relationships creates a strong foundation to hope from!
Friday, April 4, 2008
Teacher Hope Initiative Monograph
I am in the final stages of pulling together the Teacher Hope Initiative Story. In 1995 a group of teachers on extended disability came together for a day long workshop on intentionally using hope. A small group from that day were so inspired by what they experienced with Wendy Edey as their facilitator that they decided to form a group to see if they could ensure other teachers had an opportunity to explore using hope. Over time, the group called themselves "teachers helping teachers". Here is how they described themselves:
We, are a cooperative of teachers who meet together to enhance teacher health by focusing on hope. We are a combination of support group, therapy group, think tank, advocacy group and comedy hour....Since our first Hope Day in October 26, 1995, we have been an evolving, resilient group of health-challenged teachers. We are important to one another in all the decision that have to be made during our illnesses as well as at those points where we must consider reentry, changes of occupation or retirement.
Under Wendy's guidance, the "teachers helping teachers" group met weekly for three years. During that time other teachers on extended disability were able to participate in Hope Days, changes were made to policies for teachers on extended disability, and a health model was developed.
When I joined the Hope Foundaiton staff in 2000 I met some of the original members of the "teachers helping teachers" group as they continued to meet ocassionally. Often times they would meet with a teacher or two who were newly on extended disability. I was curious about resilience and hope at the time and so when Wendy suggested that I take on the telling of their story almost ten years after the pilot when I was searching for a research project for my Horowitz Scholarship, I jumped at the chance.
I knew that narrative inquiry would be the way to approach the research for me. Teachers could tell and re-tell stoires about themselves in relation to their experiences before, during and after the Teacher Hope Initiative experience. I have always been curious about teacher identity - how it is shaped and how it evolves through the stories teachers tell about themselves and the stories that are told about them. These teachers' identity, as I understood it at the time, was greatly influenced by their illnesses and disabilities.
That in a nutshell is a brief description of what and how the Teacher Hope Initiative and its resulting Story came into being. As a researcher doing narrative inquiry, my story became important to the telling. And so, the THI story includes my voice as I attempted to pull together the research participants' individual stories and the THI story in itself.
One of the outcomes of the research was the re-development of the teacher health model. One of our next tasks is to demonstrate how the newly developed model can be used as a tool to make decisions from a place of hope. The reason I believe the health model is important it that it became very apparent early in the telling of the stories that the teachers were well one day and on extended disability the next.
My greatest wonder in all of this, as the final pages of the THI Monograph are being edited, is how the participants' story and the model itself will enhance quality of life of others. With that wonder - I am looking forward to letting you know when they are ready for you to provide your thoughts and wonders!!
We, are a cooperative of teachers who meet together to enhance teacher health by focusing on hope. We are a combination of support group, therapy group, think tank, advocacy group and comedy hour....Since our first Hope Day in October 26, 1995, we have been an evolving, resilient group of health-challenged teachers. We are important to one another in all the decision that have to be made during our illnesses as well as at those points where we must consider reentry, changes of occupation or retirement.
Under Wendy's guidance, the "teachers helping teachers" group met weekly for three years. During that time other teachers on extended disability were able to participate in Hope Days, changes were made to policies for teachers on extended disability, and a health model was developed.
When I joined the Hope Foundaiton staff in 2000 I met some of the original members of the "teachers helping teachers" group as they continued to meet ocassionally. Often times they would meet with a teacher or two who were newly on extended disability. I was curious about resilience and hope at the time and so when Wendy suggested that I take on the telling of their story almost ten years after the pilot when I was searching for a research project for my Horowitz Scholarship, I jumped at the chance.
I knew that narrative inquiry would be the way to approach the research for me. Teachers could tell and re-tell stoires about themselves in relation to their experiences before, during and after the Teacher Hope Initiative experience. I have always been curious about teacher identity - how it is shaped and how it evolves through the stories teachers tell about themselves and the stories that are told about them. These teachers' identity, as I understood it at the time, was greatly influenced by their illnesses and disabilities.
That in a nutshell is a brief description of what and how the Teacher Hope Initiative and its resulting Story came into being. As a researcher doing narrative inquiry, my story became important to the telling. And so, the THI story includes my voice as I attempted to pull together the research participants' individual stories and the THI story in itself.
One of the outcomes of the research was the re-development of the teacher health model. One of our next tasks is to demonstrate how the newly developed model can be used as a tool to make decisions from a place of hope. The reason I believe the health model is important it that it became very apparent early in the telling of the stories that the teachers were well one day and on extended disability the next.
My greatest wonder in all of this, as the final pages of the THI Monograph are being edited, is how the participants' story and the model itself will enhance quality of life of others. With that wonder - I am looking forward to letting you know when they are ready for you to provide your thoughts and wonders!!
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Making Hope and Hopeful Words Visible and Accessible
Since I am not in classrooms this week because it is spring break, I find myself re-reading and reflecting on what has transpired over the last six months of this year. I am a grade five class, in two junior high classes and I work with grade sixes during lunch hour on the Hope-Focused Service-Learning program. We have been exploring hope (phase one of five phases) and are now moving outward to think about hopeful places and places where we can bring hope to others. With the exception of the grade six class, which is really a Hope-Focused Community program (not connected to curriculum per se) the other projects are connected to curriculum. Teachers in these classrooms make the curriculum connections and with student direction and leadership determine how the program in each classroom unfolds.
As I reflect back and beyond to other years I am reminded about some of the aha moments. One of those moments happened when I connected what I learned from grade fives and participants in the 'Hope Studies Certificate Program' for LPN's and Health Care Aides which is delivered through NorQuest College here in Edmonton. It is a continuing education program that is divided into three courses: HOPE 1001: Practical Strategies for Using Hope; HOPE 1002: Using Hope to Increase Job Satisfaction; HOPE 1003: Different Theories of Hope. I developed the Hope Studies Certificate Program curriculum and had an opportunity to deliver a number of the initial programs offered.
It was during the second course, using hope to increase job satisfaction, that the word "respect" came up in the conversation between participants. I was not surprised to hear that it came up as a necessary ingredient for hopeful work places. What did surprise me was that I had just heard the word respect the day before in my conversation with the grade five students.
Placing these two conversations side by side led me to add a lesson on "respect" in the Hope-Focused Service-Learning program. Very early in our exploration of hope we do a Y chart on respect. In other words, we unpack what respect looks, sounds and feels like. It is the connection to what respect feels like that I find helps children and youth begin to understand why 'respect' creates a hopeful interaction. We spend a lot of time on how hope and a hopeful learning environment feels in the Hope-Focused Service-Learning program. Taking the time to unpack what a concept like hope and/or respect looks, sounds, and feels like seems to be well worth the time. It seems that when we do take the time, it is much easier to recognize when we need to change our behaviours to more hopeful ones.
And so, as I work on making changes to the draft Hope-Focused Service-Learning Manual this week, I will include a section about the importance of unpacking what words like respect, hope and hopeful learning environments look, sound and feel like.
As I reflect back and beyond to other years I am reminded about some of the aha moments. One of those moments happened when I connected what I learned from grade fives and participants in the 'Hope Studies Certificate Program' for LPN's and Health Care Aides which is delivered through NorQuest College here in Edmonton. It is a continuing education program that is divided into three courses: HOPE 1001: Practical Strategies for Using Hope; HOPE 1002: Using Hope to Increase Job Satisfaction; HOPE 1003: Different Theories of Hope. I developed the Hope Studies Certificate Program curriculum and had an opportunity to deliver a number of the initial programs offered.
It was during the second course, using hope to increase job satisfaction, that the word "respect" came up in the conversation between participants. I was not surprised to hear that it came up as a necessary ingredient for hopeful work places. What did surprise me was that I had just heard the word respect the day before in my conversation with the grade five students.
Placing these two conversations side by side led me to add a lesson on "respect" in the Hope-Focused Service-Learning program. Very early in our exploration of hope we do a Y chart on respect. In other words, we unpack what respect looks, sounds and feels like. It is the connection to what respect feels like that I find helps children and youth begin to understand why 'respect' creates a hopeful interaction. We spend a lot of time on how hope and a hopeful learning environment feels in the Hope-Focused Service-Learning program. Taking the time to unpack what a concept like hope and/or respect looks, sounds, and feels like seems to be well worth the time. It seems that when we do take the time, it is much easier to recognize when we need to change our behaviours to more hopeful ones.
And so, as I work on making changes to the draft Hope-Focused Service-Learning Manual this week, I will include a section about the importance of unpacking what words like respect, hope and hopeful learning environments look, sound and feel like.
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