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!!
