Hope showed up for me this week.
I read a piece by Rachael Gabriel, a literacy professor at the University of Connecticut, about what is happening in the literacy landscape right now, clear, specific, without judgment. Something I had been thinking about suddenly had words.
And I realized, after reading it, I was feeling hope.
The kind that comes when something true becomes evident.
As teachers, we know this feeling.
It shows up when a student understands something that hasn’t clicked all year.
When you notice progress that no test has captured.
When you think, this worked. I would do this again.
It’s easy to miss in these last days of the year. But this is when it matters most.
What do you know now that you didn’t know in September?
What have you seen work?
Where have you made a difference that only you could have made?
Hope lives there.
In what you’ve learned.
In what you’ve seen.
In what you can now use again.
Sometimes it takes a moment to recognize it for what it is.
Hope.
I go into more detail on the blog about what's happening right now and why we all have reason to be hopeful about what this means for the future of teaching. Read more.
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