A Hope for Hope: The Role of Hope in Education

JAC, 2005

Hope. It's a word that we often read in monographs and journal artic les in our field. It's become so much a part of our conversations, especially in that part of the field influenced by critical pedagogy, that we take little notice of it. But we need to notice it. Hope is part of our discourse, part of our orientation toward the future, part of how we sustain ourselves in our daily work. We hope for the best for our students, both individually and collectively. We hope that the world will become a better place. We hope that we get tenure, a new job, better working conditions, a grant, a new computer, or whatever it is we need to sustain our professional lives. We think that, of course, we should cultivate hope in our teaching lives.

2019

This paper is dedicated to my mother, Twyla. Throughout my life, she has always held the highest hopes for me and, in turn, has taught me to set lofty goals for myself and stay hopeful through the many challenges I have faced. I also want to dedicate this paper to my fiancé Katrina for her support through the many evenings and weekends that were required to complete this work.

Phenomenology & Practice, 2013

This paper explores the experience of pedagogical hope from educators’ viewpoints. Starting from a multidisciplinary study, it has been developed through the collection and analysis of descriptions of experiences lived by educators, which have revealed some essential points: realism, sense of wonder, patience, and openness, among others. The discovery of the powerful and fundamental influence of hope in the lives of teachers exercising their role, assistants, school counselors, as well as in the lives of the children and youth whom they have been entrusted, leads us to preserve and attest to it.

Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 2022

For scholars across a wide range of disciplines, the work of building critical inquiry and guiding students to discover and hone the tools necessary to be attentive to the world is not new. Critical scholars have long understood that to engage in a pedagogy of emancipation and transformation is "to work for justice, changing [the] educational system so that schooling is not the site where students are indoctrinated to support [systems of domination] or any ideology, but rather where they learn to open their minds, to engage in rigorous study and to think critically" (hooks, 2003, p. xiii). Just as much as we have taken on this responsibility of opening our students to deeper awareness of various modes of violence, dispossession, war, displacement, and oppression that permeate our world, it also is imperative to work to imagine worlds otherwise-to raise the specter of hope and to not give in to despondency or cynicism. Indeed, for many scholars such as bell hooks, Paulo Freire, and Henry Giroux, and as I further argue here, hope is a central imperative for an emancipatory education. At the same time, I further suggest that as educators, we must be careful to not oversimplify hope as either an ephemeral romantic notion or as a rigid radicalism. Rather, hope must be fluid and transformative even as it is able to be transformed-taking on new shapes in the face of a changing world. In this article, I center a pedagogy of hope in the need for an anti-racist and decolonial geography education. I further argue that a pedagogy of hope requires imagination and a recognition that we simply may not yet have the imaginative capacity to know what worlds-otherwise may be possible. Nonetheless, we have a responsibility for paving the way for future possibilities.

The goals of this chapter are to explore the role of hope in predicting academic achievements and educational adjustment, focusing attention on developmental perspectives, and directing attention to different age groups: children, adolescents and young adults. The recent growing scientific interest in the hope theory and the contribution of future perspectives for explaining students' success and adjustment have been explored among various academic environments. Studies have identified the construct's contribution to students' wellbeing and development. Comparisons between individuals with special needs and their peers have extended the understanding of hope's role as a mediator within the salutogenic approach. Furthermore, the survey of studies focused on hope among significant individuals in the life of students, such as parents and teachers, emphasized their critical role and extended the understanding of the importance of social support in families and schools.

Journal of Polian Studies, 2022

In this introduction, I will situate Polo’s article on hope within the context of the project to introduce Polo’s thought to English-speaking educational institutions. To this end, my aim is four-fold. First, I will highlight the relevance of Polo’s thought for education. Second, I will relate the article on hope to Polo’s thought more generally. Third, I will provide an overview of the content of the paper. And fourth, I will discuss the significance of this paper for young people in our information age.

Journal of Student Affairs in Africa, 2014

This issue is being produced at a time of immense uncertainty in the world. In the wake of Brexit, the election of Donald Trump in the United States, and the increasing support of so called " Alt-Right " parties across Europe and North America, we are faced with complex challenges at every social level. The work of educational research, and research on pedagogy more specifically, is crucial to our efforts to resist the dehumanization and violence that has been both perpetuated and promised in the wake of these events. Many are feeling more than mere uncertainty about the future: they are terrified, vulnerable, and searching both for ways of understanding how these reactionary and conservative policies and politicians have come to hold sway over so much of our reality, as well as for strategies of resistance – for ways of moving forward on the side of justice. In these moments, it can be especially difficult to maintain a sense or feeling of hope. To be certain, there is a kind of violence that can be perpetuated by insisting on hope when it is clear that so much of what we have been hoping for has been decried, delegitimized, and seemingly rejected by so many in our societies. It is important to grieve in the wake of the unthinkable and abominable. Yet we cannot allow our grief to constrain us to the point of defeat. It is in these moments that a pedagogical form of hope is essential. Paulo Freire (2006) wrote about the need for an " armed love. " A hopeful and fighting love on the side of justice is what is called for in our present moment, and in every moment moving forward. We should be clear, this hope is not naïve, but rather, works as the source for our pedagogical and