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Shallow Optimism, Deep Hope: a quick formula for resilience in education

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"I am not an optimist, but I am a prisoner of hope." --Cornel West Three quick points: 1. Apparently only 31% of students nationwide agree that "I can find many lots of ways around any problem." 2. We always ask: why aren't students more invested in their own education? The answer is because they don't own the goals that are set for the educational system. As Jessica Lahey put it in a recent tweet: "we don't wash our rental cars." 3. Hope is another word for resilience. Hope comes to us, and it sends us over and over again into situations where failure is possible. It is grounded in a durable concepts like justice, goodness, truth, and love. Students are optimistic that they will do well on the next test because they studied over the last few days. [low resilience] Students hope that their education makes them genuine human beings, capable of carrying out full, just, and independent lives. [high resilience] Our school system i...