Hunker Down and Hope

My students are 2/3 of the way done with a project. Using scientific inquiry method, historical perspective, researching primary documents, and conducting oral history interviews of family members, they are taking a close look at what has shaped their lives. I can take absolutely no credit for this project. My two collegues on my 10th grade team are master teachers that have been working together for seven years. I joined them last year after my film and reading electives were cancelled. My contribution to the project was to lead the students through writing lessons that would produce a poem for their front page, and a reflective essay for the last pages. The essays are in and I am about to settle down to a weekend of giving teacher feedback.


Their essential question that guided their process of producing their scrapbook was this:

Which factors (beliefs, principles, values, education, environment) have determined who I am? How so? Will these factors predetermine my future? Why or why not?

I guess I'll be busy all weekend. But when I take my breaks and rub my eyes, I will send out hope for this Tuesday's outcome. I will watch this video a few more times, because every time I do I get chicken skin and teary with hope. My heart bleeds with hope for us all.

And in that place, I think about America and those who built it. This nation's founders, who somehow rose above petty ambitions and narrow calculations to imagine a nation unfurling across a continent. And those like Lincoln and King, who ultimately laid down their lives in the service of perfecting an imperfect union. And all the facelss, nameless men and women, slaves and soldiers and tailors and butchers, constructing lives for themsleves and their children and grandchildren, brick by brick, rail by rail, calloused hand by calloused hand, to fill in the landscape of our collective dreams.

It is that process I wish to be a part of.

My heart is filled with love for this country.

Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope