On Being Hopeful

Imagine what we are doing for our students when we create spaces to make ways of hoping accessible ~ especially when hope suckers present themselves?

It feels like we are making spaces for empathy ...

I am surprised at how introspective students become when they reflect on their experiences of hoping ....

Reflecting on these comments, made by teachers while sharing stories of working with the Hope-Focused Service-Learning program in recent professional development sessions, reminds me that it was grade eight students who taught me about needing to put hope shields over our hearts to protect ourselves from the hope suckers. I remember another group of grade five students explaining to me that wishing is in the head and hoping in the heart. Finally, I remember the day another group of grade five students participated in conversations with Rotarians to plan community hope projects in conjunction with their academic studies.

These memories sustain my hope and determination to continue to find ways to create opportunities for teachers to make sense of how we can create spaces and places for students to story themselves forward in times of adversity and despair or as the grade eights put it ~ to cope with the hope suckers that can immobilize and/or make living feel too difficult in the moment.

I keep these stories close to my heart so that I do not become discouraged by the statistics of how quickly one can decide to terminate his/her life in a moment of anguish or choose to dull the pain over time with drugs or alcohol when hopeful ways of relating and acting are considered secondary to how we see ourselves moving into a personally meaningful future.