Note to Educators: Hope Required When Growing Roses in Concrete/Hope and Healing in Urban Education

Note to Educators: Hope Required When Growing Roses in Concrete

Author: Jeffrey Duncan-Andrade

The author uses this article to discuss hope and its many identities.  Duncan-Andrade highlights three forms of false hope: hokey, hope, mythical hope, and hope deferred.  He uses the backgrounds of students to understand the true potential they lack or have and finds a solution in “Critical Hope” .  Critical Hope rejects hopelessness and demands a committed and active struggle against oppression.

1. Duncan-Andrade states that the election of Barack Obama is a great example of mythical hope.  Claiming the end of racism in America because we have a black president is mythical hope. One exemption cannot be the definition of new hope.  He says maybe things will change and Obama is making history, but the fact is there is still racism and prejudices in America.
2. “The American Dream” is a hokey hope to urban youth, claims Duncan-Andrade.  Teaching students to gain an education means they will acquire the perfect job and live the “American Dream” to be financially stable; however, this is hokey hope because it does not teach students the truth about the under-resourced schools they attend.  The fact is, there is an “uneven playing field” for these students and it will critically impact them. There is an overwhelming majority of working -class urban youth of color that lack opportunities making this hope inaccessible.   
3. Hope Deferred is most often seen with urban youth and teachers because teachers feel they are ill equipped.  Hope deferred is the teacher deferring the hope to a later time; hoping for a Utopian society or the individual student’s future rise to the middle class.  The teacher creates hope deferred by letting students plan a highly unlikely goal “and hope deferred too long is hope denied”. The author says teachers need to realize the backgrounds of these students cannot be seen as stressors but as “roses in the concrete”.
4. Critical Hope is the hope of all hopes and has three sub-categories: material hope, Socratic hope, and audacious hope.  Duncan-Andrade says this hope “demands a committed and active struggle”. It’s knowing the inequities the urban youth are faced with and using it to overcome these “socially toxic environments”.  Marital hope is not focusing solely on the assessment (academic pedagogy) but the quality of the teaching and social justice. Socratic Hope is having a concrete example for students to follow and humanizing the students.  Audacious hope is knowing the struggle but not denying the path; overcoming the odds and making a change because “there is no other choice”.