Last Thursday I heard a high school student tell a group of adults around a table discussion that one of the barriers she feels to attending school is that there are few opportunities to tell her story. What she would like others to know is how difficult it is to ask her grandmother for bus money. She is afraid to hear what she knows in her heart. If she gave up on her dream of becoming a welder there would be less stress on her grandmother and family. However, giving up is not an option for this determined young lady who asked us to consider the consequences. As a hopeful person, she want others to HEAR her story so that she can continue to imagine and work toward the day when she can pay for her own bus pass. For "when we hope we detach ourselves from the story of our lives up to now. . . .The hopeful person is on the boundary between old formulations of the self and new formulations not yet born (Barnard, 1995, p. 50).
I believe we have a responsibility to find a way to do what the adults at Eastglen High School did for this young lady. They created a space for her to courageously put her hope of becoming a welder for others to hear even though she prefaced it with, "You might thing this is crazy, but I love helping my grandfather weld and so..."
I left the table asking myself what is the smallest thing I can do to support her hope? Perhaps allowing her story to become part of my story is a start to knowing what I need to do next!
