Sep

26

Hope as an Obstacle

Filed Under "At-risk" students, The Way I See It 

Hope is important, because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today. But that is the most that hope can do for us-to make some hardship lighter. When I think deeply about the nature of hope, I see something tragic. Since we cling to our hope in the future, we do not focus our energies and capabilities on the present moment. We use hope to believe something better will happen in the future…

Thich Nhat Hanh

Hope as an obstacle? I’ve never thought of hope as an obstacle until I read these words by Thich Nhat Hanh. I’ve always thought of hope as a good thing. It’s been my chief strategy on more than one occasion, and yet here Thich Nhat Hanh is telling me that the nature of hope is something tragic. I already knew that the nature of hopelessness is tragic. I see that in many of my at risk students. They have no hope. Their past experiences have led them to conclude that the nature of school is hopeless. There’s no future in school for them , or more accurately there’s no school in their future. So they leave.

What’s to be done? I’ve always hoped that we could keep these at risk students in school until they matured enough to see the value of a high school diploma. Happily, the school board I work for is doing more than hoping. Peel is focusing its energies and capabilities on supporting these students in the present moment. I’ve just come from an all day professional development session where we looked at what was being done right now, at this moment in the schools, and I must say I am absolutely delighted. I dare say, Thich Nhat Hanh would be delighted too.

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    These are my personal views and not those of my employer.
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