Hopeful Places

I have the good fortune to be working alongside grade seven and nine students in the Hope-Focused Service-Learning program. Today we wrote about 'hopeful places' in the grade nine classroom. This is not as easy as it sounds. I was proud of how the students worked hard to generate a list of words to describe how hope feels when we are in these places. There were a couple of students who had difficulty thinking of a 'hopeful place' - past or present in their school or community. I wonder if they will remember a place when their classmates share stories of their experiences in these places next week.

In the grade seven classroom we created collages of 'hopeful places' in groups. And then using the collages, filled in a T chart to describe what hope looks, sounds, and feels like. We also brainstormed 'hopeful places' and how the places are hopeful in the community surrounding the school. As I said, we worked in groups in the grade seven class and so we were able to talk about the skills we were developing as 'team' members. We discussed how group skills will help us when we go out into the community to bring hope to others. As we encounter the challenges that go with an inquiry project it will help to know how to contribute to the team.

I leave you with a poem that one of the grade nine students gave me to share with you about what she is learning about hope.

Hope is...

Laughter, tears, and strength.
It's the weakness facing it's opponent to prove
the power and will be become stronger.
It's clarity developed from the frustrations
and confusions of our lives.
It's that feeling of accomplishment, of victory
after experiencing the 'battle of anger, sorrow and loss'.
It's the comfort and love of our family and friends, ~
the trust, loyalty, honesty, bravery, faith.
It's the never ending story of the world's diversity, completely
different and unique and one.

Lessons From Grade Five Students

Today I met a group of grade five students who were introduced to the Hope-Focused Service-Learning program for the first time. Since we are in phase one of the program we talked about what researchers do. The teacher and I do this to frame our work together at the beginning of the program as a quest to awaken new understandings. We had not yet talked about our hope study. I finished reading The Three Questions by Jon J. Muth as I often do when starting this work with a new group. When I asked if anyone had a comment, wonder or a-ha they would like to share after hearing the story of The Three Questions, a hand shot up in the air. "How can you study hope when it is unique to each person?" I want to say that I handled the question well, but the truth is that I did not. The question, as I acknowledged, was an excellent question. What I did not say was that it was one of the questions that drives much of our work at the Hope Foundation of Alberta. We know that there is more than one way to search for the many wonders that we have about the multi-dimensional nature of hope. My own research interests are to use narrative inquiry or the telling of stories to uncover and discover how hope guides our actions, thoughts, feelings and relationships in the Hope-Focused Service-Learning program. I did not say all this because I was too astounded to respond with any clarity. I think I said something like, "That is what we will be discovering over the year."

After the students created representations of symbols that came to mind when they thought of hope and had a chance to "think about their thinking", the student raised his hand again to ask if the downturn in the economy is affecting the study of hope or hopes of individuals. We added that one to our list of questions. Later when the class was getting ready to go home, the student informed me that he had another two questions for me to write down. "How did I decide to study stuff? Why did I decide to study hope?" These are stories that I can tell next time. In the meantime, I will repeat what I often tell children and youth. That is, "We should have engaged them in conversations about hope a long time ago!