“MAKING HOPE A HABIT”

When you decide to live your best life, who will you be? In Joel Osteen’s Living Your Best Life Now, we are constantly reminded of the importance of remaining hopeful that blessings are available for all who believe they will receive them. If we stay on our preordained paths and live according to our purpose, we will experience abundant lives. At any age, we can continue to work to be the person we were meant to be.

Very similar messages of hope resounded in Governor Deval Patrick’s gubernatorial campaign and continue, now, early into his governorship. Saying and sincerely believing that “Together We Can” brings a sense of courage and fortitude to meeting and being victorious in many of life’s challenges.

I am convinced that these same messages of hope must remain prevalent for students in the Springfield Public Schools. We educators have often asked students, “Who do you want to be when you grow up?” What an important, powerful question! I’m wondering if in asking that question was there a realization that we were actually planting seeds of hope. What we were really saying was, “You are who you are for now. This is your life regardless of your circumstances; but who will you be once you’re educated, self-confident, aware of life’s possibilities, and determined to be successful?”

In an article by Jon Saphier, entitled John Adams’ Promise: How to Have Good Schools for All Our Children, Not Just for Some, I read “The promise of American democracy has always been a fair chance at a good life for those who work hard and take advantage of the opportunities of a free society.” Here again, we see the message of hope. However, in this same article, the author declares that this is no longer true in our country because many children, especially poor children, are locked out of the door of opportunity called “education.” Our nation’s most at-risk students need to be pressed hard and taught well to reach high levels of excellence in order to secure a better life. To keep the message of hope alive for poor, potentially left-behind students, schools must combat the seemingly impossible task of widespread underperformance.

Do schools and learning institutions have the capacity to do what they were designed to do to enable them to deliver on the promise of a better life? Are teachers, administrators and policy makers prepared to remedy the ills that have beset us and prevented us from adequately educating all children? I believe quality education should be a critical domestic priority; and I also believe that we have begun affording many children an unfettered start on a healthy life journey through education and knowledge. Let us not cease to echo words that will continue to fuel the message of hope?

The work of educating all children is tedious and demanding, but doable and essential. Aristotle told us “We are what we repeatedly do.” Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit. To attain excellence and sustain the message of hope, being hopeful must become a habit. n