As teachers plant seeds of hope in their classrooms, principals must take the lead in creating a school culture where those seeds can grow.

In a scene in the 1991 film Grand Canyon, a character named Simon, played by Danny Glover, has a heart-to-heart with his nephew, Otis, telling him that he’s concerned about Otis’ growing involvement with a neighborhood gang. “You wanna be gangbanging when you are 25?” Simon asks. Otis quickly replies, “I’ll never live to be 25.”

This movie is 30 years old, but young people like Otis continue to populate our school systems. They feel trapped and destined for a dead-end life — in a word, they feel hopeless. Research shows that one-third of adolescents feel hopeless and two-thirds believe they are incapable of overcoming the problems they encounter in their lives, sentiments that are particularly evident in urban schools and communities (Child Trends, 2012); and Black, Latinx, and Indigenous youth are far more likely to feel hopeless than their white peers (Center for Surveillance, Epidemiology, and Laboratory Services, 2018). Prolonged feelings of hopelessness can lead to such devastating consequences as dropping out of school, being incarcerated, and dying by suicide (Sum et al., 2009).

School leaders who care about equity have long had reason to be concerned about how hopelessness might take hold among students living in under-resourced communities, and the COVID-19 pandemic has raised the stakes even more. Many students who were already under stress from lack of resources lost out on learning and socialization opportunities they’d normally get at school because they did not have computers and broadband access. As stress and uncertainty have increased, so too have media reports about our children’s declining mental health, deteriorating family relationships, increasing loneliness and anxiety, and despondence over losing friends and job opportunities (Brooker, 2020).

Amid all this, hope is essential. As Jessica Lahey (2015) explains, “the intergenerational cycle of effect of low expectations and hopelessness is powerful, [however] hope acts as a kind of vaccination against the virulent effects of poverty, addiction, and childhood trauma.” Teachers can help instill hope through classroom activities, but principals, I believe, hold the key to creating school environments where students can become more hopeful, enhancing their chances for short- and long-term success.

Defining and nurturing hope

Recently, I asked several friends attending a conference to describe what “hope” means to them. Various answers emerged. Some defined hope as a belief that things will work out, and others noted that it provides a sense of purpose and future promise. One person took an especially strong stance and proclaimed, “Hope is a basic human need.”

Research bears out my colleagues’ sentiments: Hopeful individuals set goals, value progress in meeting these goals, are less anxious in stressful situations, adapt well to change, and show compassion for others (Bashant, 2016). Many educators have become aware in recent years of Carol Dweck’s (2006) work on how students’ mindsets affect their capacity to learn and grow. Those who employ a fixed mindset believe their intelligence, abilities, and talents are stagnant — so they lack hope that they can improve. Conversely, those activating a growth mindset believe they can learn and improve through personal effort and persistence. In short, they have hope. But it’s important to remember that a growth mindset involves more than just a belief in the possibility of success or a willingness to put in a lot of effort (Papadopoulos, n.d.). Dweck (2015) contends that individuals can develop a growth mindset by continually assessing the results of their efforts, adjusting their learning as needed. She further explains that people possess both fixed and growth mindsets and can improve their learning by recognizing when their fixed mindset surfaces and figuring out how to work through it.

Positive psychologists interested in hope theory have identified three interrelated components that drive how hopeful people think and act (Helland & Winston, 2005). In sum, hopeful people:

Set goals. They are able to orient their thoughts to the future.
Have agency. They have the capacity and determination to maintain the effort to reach desired goals.
Possess pathways. They have the ability to overcome obstacles in their way as they pursue goals.

So how can educators nurture hope in their students? For almost three decades, researchers at Hope Studies Central at the University of Alberta in Canada have been documenting the ways hope has been cultivated in the counseling, education, and health care fields. In education, multiple programs have emerged to help students develop practices informed by hope. For example, Major League Baseball’s (MLB’s) Breaking Barriers: In Sports, In Life program draws on the experiences of Jackie Robinson to equip students in grades 4-8 with strategies to confront obstacles and challenges. Students examine the barriers Robinson encountered as the first Black MLB player, learn about how values shape people’s responses to life’s obstacles, and write personal essays about how Robinson’s example can help them overcome challenges in their own lives. And Kids at Hope is a national youth development project aimed at reversing the trends and stereotypes associated with at-risk youth to help them become more self-confident and hopeful. Project staff collaborate with preK-12 schools to help students identify important assets in their lives, including caring adults and their own talents; consider how these assets might help them achieve realistic goals; and then record and reflect on how they are using these assets in their home lives, schools, communities, and hobbies (Tipps, 2013).

It’s important to help students identify realistic and worthwhile goals and think through how to overcome potential obstacles in pursuing them.

Teachers have an important role to play in planting hope seeds (Gibson & Barr, 2017) through classroom activities designed to improve students’ goal setting, agency development, and problem-solving abilities. But developing hope requires more than planting seeds. It also requires that those seeds have the right hope soil in which more hopeful and resilient students can grow. Therefore, I believe the time has come for principals to take the additional step to embed hope within the school culture.

Classroom activities and programs

In Grand Canyon, Otis saw being in a gang as his only option for finding belonging and security for the few years he believed he had left. Because he saw no other options for his future, he lacked the motivation to overcome the challenges he faced. Students like Otis can benefit from classroom activities and experiences that help them set realistic and productive goals, build their self-confidence and self-belief, and develop strategies for overcoming the obstacles ahead.

Setting goals

Programs for at-risk students, such as Breaking Barriers and Kids at Hope, focus on building their personal aspirations by helping them to identify their assets, recognize opportunities, and define their goals. Students in such programs learn to develop and articulate goals and benchmarks that excite them; that reflect important aspects of their lives; that focus on themselves and other people; and that are publicly reinforced in school assemblies, newsletters, and posters (Bashant, 2016).

To begin to develop goals, students might complete interest inventories to identify any values, interests, and skills that might be relevant to their potential aspirations. And tools such as the Children’s Hope Scale (Snyder et al., 1997) can show what goals feel most realistic to them, which can help students and their teachers set priorities for which goals to focus on and what additional skills and knowledge students might need to achieve the goals that feel more out of reach. Typically, student’s goals focus on their academic and social-emotional learning. Academic outcomes might include raising math performance by one letter grade, increasing time spent doing homework, improving note-taking skills, or spending less time on electronic devices at home. And social-emotional goals can focus on resolving conflicts without fighting or swearing, spending more time with grandparents, refraining from interrupting other people during conversations, or following through on decisions.

When setting goals, several issues need to be considered. Some students may have difficulty identifying long-term goals; therefore, focusing on shorter-term goals may be wise. Larrie Rouillard (2003) advises having students identify measurable outcomes, set short-term timelines and milestones, and assess personal and resource costs involved in working toward a goal. Students, especially in secondary schools, may set unrealistic goals (e.g., attending a prestigious college or becoming a professional athlete) and then feel a sense of failure once they realize the goal may be well beyond their reach, so it’s important to help students identify realistic and worthwhile goals and think through how to overcome potential obstacles in pursuing them. It’s also helpful for students to see evidence that success is possible. Former students who’ve achieved their goals can serve as excellent models and mentors for current students. Even something as simple as arranging for graduating high school seniors to visit their elementary and middle schools dressed in their caps and gowns can send young students a powerful message that graduation is within their reach. For older students, meeting alumni or community members who’ve accomplished some of the goals they’re currently striving for can have the same effect.

Developing agency

The other two elements of hope theory — having agency and seeing pathways — work in tandem. Agency (willpower) has a motivational role while pathways (waypower) gives students specific strategies to accomplish goals (Snyder, 2002). Clearly, having the desire and determination to reach our goals is extremely important; however, that motivation takes on special significance when we encounter impediments or obstacles.

When it comes to agency, Angela Duckworth (2016) reminds us, “it isn’t suffering that leads to hopelessness, [but] suffering you think you can’t control” (p. 172). When teachers implement meaning-making, self-reflection, and self-awareness exercises, they can help students recognize their power to learn from their experiences and influence their circumstances. Even something as simple as a regular affirmation of forward-thinking belief, when combined with other practices to raise confidence, can encourage students to always be aware of their ability to shape their future. For instance, each morning students at De La Salle Elementary School in Freeport, New York, recite this pledge:

I am a leader by choosing to do the right thing even when it means that I am standing alone.
I give back to those less fortunate than myself.
I dream big.
I work hard to achieve my dreams. (Bashant, 2016, p. 18)

Other agency-developing strategies push students to eliminate “problem talk” (“I’m not good at this,” “Other people are better than me”) by substituting positive self-statements (“I can do this,” “I will keep at it”; Bashant, 2016). Teachers can also encourage students to take more personal ownership of their learning by having them complete self-assessment exercises; reflect on their strengths and areas for growth; and share their achievements and improvement with peers, teachers, and parents (Stiggins, 2002). Evidence from numerous empirical studies suggests that when students, especially low achievers, consistently engage in these types of self-assessment practices, their academic performance significantly increases (Stiggins & Chappuis, 2006).

Seeing pathways

Because students like Otis frequently have difficulty coping with obstacles that arise when they are striving to achieve their goals, they are quite likely to give up and concede defeat. This may be the most challenging aspect of hope to instill in our youth — nearly two-thirds of American students believe they are incapable of overcoming the problems they encounter in their lives (Lopez, 2010). Illuminating a pathway for students involves giving them opportunities to practice surmounting obstacles. Teachers can help students practice solving problems by showing them how to divide their primary goals (e.g., graduate high school) into a series of manageable subgoals (e.g., earn x number of credits by a certain date), then guiding them to achieve those subgoals by locating important resources (such as a peer tutor) that they can use to surmount any obstacles.

In recent years, a multitude of youth empowerment programs have surfaced to help students gain a stronger sense of control over their lives and the opportunity to practice addressing some of the most significant obstacles they might encounter. These school- and community-based programs encourage students to become more fully engaged in their schools and communities by developing and implementing social action projects. These might include school projects focused on important problems — such as school violence, student misconduct, property damage and vandalism, and parental involvement — or community projects targeting critical local issues — including food shortages for seniors, homelessness, child welfare, foster care, and adult literacy. Growing evidence indicates these programs not only increase students’ sense of control, self-efficacy, and pro-social behavior, but also positively affect their school performance (e.g., grades, effort, academic confidence, graduation rates; Batista, Johnson, & Friedmann, 2018; Zimmerman et al., 2018).

Leading for hope

The responsibility to implement these hope-generating practices generally falls on teachers; however, principals hold the key to creating a school climate and culture that encourages, supports, and recognizes the importance of hope. Without their leadership and commitment to develop and sustain a hopeful culture, schools stand little chance of increasing students’ hopefulness.

For seeds of hope to grow within students, they need to be planted in healthy soil. As a starting point, principals can till that soil by encouraging teachers to have honest conversations about their own underlying biases regarding students’ capabilities, especially those who are at risk. Using programs such as the Culture of Hope (Gibson & Barr, 2017), teachers can complete surveys and examine scenarios that reveal their unconscious beliefs about the abilities and motivation of at-risk students and their families. Understanding the potential toxic effects of deficit thinking is a first step toward becoming a more effective advocate and supporter of students and families living in poverty.

As teachers come to recognize the problems with deficit thinking, they may be inclined to profess false hope for at-risk students, as a counter to the more gloomy predictions they’ve become accustomed to hearing. Symptoms of false hope include simplistic statements that any obstacles can be overcome through hard work, the belief that a single lucky event demonstrates a substantial change, and the claim that future conditions will improve over time. Jeff Duncan-Andrade (2009) describes such false hope as a toxin in the soil. In contrast, he believes educators can enrich the soil with minerals and nutrients of critical hope by providing students with high-quality teaching and learning experiences to help them gain a sense of control in their lives; examining the realities of injustice, oppression, and marginalization they face; and standing alongside them to share their pain, suffering, and successes. Critical hope goes beyond platitudes to include action, such as tutoring students after school and on weekends, transporting students to events, purchasing meals and supplies, communicating with them through social media, and connecting them with legal and medical services. When dire conditions occur, teachers will rise to the occasion, as demonstrated by their tireless efforts in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic to support their most needy families, helping them secure online learning resources, making home visits to check on their physical and emotional well-being, and providing food (Gurr, 2020).

Besides helping teachers understand how their attitudes may be affecting their practices and expectations for students, principals can employ other strategies to demonstrate they are serious about developing a culture of hope. They can provide professional development programs on instructional strategies for goal setting, agency development, and pathways thinking and hold teachers accountable for implementing these strategies. Principals can spread hopeful practices throughout the school by allowing teachers to visit classrooms to observe activities and strategies their peers are using to build students’ hopeful thinking and action. Finally, campus improvement plans can identify key goals and outcomes to address hopelessness. Implementing these various support strategies demonstrates principals are serious about embedding hope in the school’s norms, traditions, and expectations. This will not happen in a day, a week, or even a single school year, however. Healthy and vibrant gardens require constant attention to remove weeds, eliminate damaging insects, and supply nutrients to reap a healthy yield. So, too, sustained efforts by principals will be necessary.

Environments of hope

Principals and their staffs cannot create more hopeful students and citizens by themselves. Other factors — such as prenatal care, diet and nutrition, environmental pollution, and medical care — can jeopardize students’ life chances (Schmitt, Finders, & McClelland, 2015). For that reason, schools, in combination with parents, policy makers, community organizations and businesses, and religious and social institutions must create environments of hope, if we are serious about improving educational, social, and well-being outcomes for students.

One promising approach is the emergence of community-funded early childhood programs for families living in poverty. Using funds obtained from voter-approved sales tax increases, these programs immerse young children in activities to increase their attention, self-control, cognitive flexibility, social-emotional skills, and memory, all of which promote school readiness and early school success (Center on the Developing Child, 2011). Another strategy is for schools to partner with agencies to support youth empowerment programs, such as the 4H Club, Boys and Girls Clubs, and YMCA, which already have created programs aimed at allowing youth to access opportunities and removing barriers to their education and achievement (National Collaboration for Youth, 2011). Principals can also collaborate with their colleagues, district administrators, and regional educational service centers to identify potential partners based on their individual needs and interests. By reaching out to others beyond the school, principals model their commitment to being agents of hope.

A hope-generating education takes an asset-based view of students and communities that values the knowledge and experience of children and families, uses community resources, and provides an education grounded in care and respect. Such an education will produce children and adolescents who can overcome whatever life throws at them, as expressed by Valarie Maholmes of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development:

Hope is not just this pie-in-the-sky thing — people who overcome and succeed despite adversity have a sense that “I can do it,” this sense [of] efficacy, and it feeds a vision. That vision is what inspires and motivates and drives hope. That hope is what keeps you getting up when society tells you that you should be down and out. (as cited in Lahey, 2015)

Just think how Otis might have responded to his uncle’s suggestion that he avoid joining a gang if he possessed a strong sense of efficacy that gave him a different vision of his future. Don’t we want all of our students to have this kind of hopeful vision that gives them resilience to overcome adversity and improve their life chances?

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This article appears in the April 2022 issue of Kappan, Vol. 103, No. 7, pp. 38-42.