What’s Hope Got to Do With It? Toward a Theory of Hope and Pedagogy

Hope. It’s a word that we often read in monographs and journal articles 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. Of course, our pedagogy should be hopeful. But what does being hopeful mean? What do we mean when we talk about hope, especially in relation to pedagogy? Do we simply mean it in the everyday sense of being optimistic? Do we mean it in a Freirean sense? A Christian sense? Whatever sense is intended, hope is universally seen as positive, a quality we should cultivate in ourselves as teachers and as human beings.