The Tradition Of Hope

Hopelessness is indeed a deeming reality and sadly we come across the term much too often in the world we live in today. It is attached to people, situations, countries and even ideas.

Being an educationist, I do tend to stretch my limits and believe a little more in people, situations, countries and ideas. It is difficult to explain this oddity of mine to most people who like to pull out conclusions based on facts and reality.

Most of the time, the dream in my heart is able to take some shape with a lot of planning in my mind. Often the results are not what I desired them to be, yet they bring me lots of satisfaction as I feel content at having given it a try.

It is a turmoil to watch a structure collapse bit by bit standing at a distance, unable to convince the people concerned of the arriving disaster. To me, that is but the only hopeless moment beyond my control. I feel helpless and often that induces an anger which portrays me in a negative light.

My mentor was a young Indian lady who always reminded me to look for that one strength in any situation or human being before casting them off as hopeless. That one strength would be my chance to discover a whole new possibility to build upon.

With time and experience, I realized that there was much truth to her philosophy. However, it takes a lot of time and slips before you are able to read faces and understand the complexity of minds. It’s a draining activity and many times I was left perplexed by the amount of rigidity in people and ideas. From fixed lesson planning and methodologies in teaching to denial of having gone wrong, teachers can be quite challenging to deal with, especially when the future of the children is at stake.

As a teacher, I was always open to change and experimentation. To me, the child was fundamental and anything that lead to his/her growth was acceptable and worth the effort. I would leave my ego at the door when entering the school. A learner at all times, I could never imagine my way to be the way of the world. I hoped there would always be an alternative to hold onto in case my plans would lose their effectiveness.

Today, education has started to fall into a rigid structure. The possibilities of discovering new methods, ideas and plans to equip a child with a better future have been run over by school policies and redundant programmes. Making a special effort to help out a child in need is considered unfair on part of the rest of the class. There is lack of will and sadly teachers seem to have accepted the system which murders the passion to reach beyond the hopelessness.

A singular child can awaken the mind to so many new dimensions. A failure in a plan can open the door to a whole new world of success. Yet we fail to acknowledge the world beyond our skylines.

If only we could inculcate that faith which upholds the tradition of hope. Where the only way to success is to believe in the potentiality of our creation.