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ERIC Number: EJ936292
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2011
Pages: 3
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1085-3545
EISSN: N/A
Building and Sustaining Hope. A Response to "Meaningful Hope for Teachers in a Time of High Anxiety and Low Morale"
Hytten, Kathy
Democracy & Education, v19 n1 Article 8 2011
In this essay, I respond to Carrie Nolan and Sarah M. Stitzlein's article "Meaningful Hope for Teachers in a Time of High Anxiety and Low Morale" and support their argument for meaningful hope grounded in pragmatist philosophy. I agree that while hope is routinely called for in the educational literature, it is often done so in superficial and vacuous ways. Moreover, hope is often conflated with wishful thinking or naive optimism. A pragmatist vision of hope is different. It is a hope that compels us to act thoughtfully and creatively in the present so as to open up yet unimagined possibilities for the future--a hope that is generative, resourceful, engaged, and communal. To complement Nolan and Stitzlein's vision, I argue that pragmatist hope also requires of us habits of community building and social and political activism to challenge unjust systems. Only when we act on both individual and systemic levels can we sustain the kind of pragmatist hope that is so necessary in schools.
Lewis & Clark Graduate School of Education and Counseling. 0615 SW Palatine Hill Road MSC 93, Portland, OR 97219. Tel: 503-768-6054; Fax: 503-768-6053; e-mail: journal@lclark.edu; Web site: http://lclark.edu/org/journal
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Opinion Papers
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A