Rediscovering Hope in
Children of Poverty:
THE ROLE OF HOPE AND GRIT IN
SHAPING THE CONVERSATIONS IN OUR
HEADS
Dr. Kevin Sheehan
Molloy College
Division of Education
Kevin Rall
The De La Salle School
Pick an NFL Quarterback
from the Combine Scores
Self-Belief Trumps Ability
What we believe about
our ability becomes our reality…
There is a constant conversation in our
head, often subconscious, that measures
our belief on how we are doing….this
talk is ongoing and ties into our emotions
This conversation in our heads is the start of
agentic goal motivation... our self-belief
What does this conversation
sound like?
I will do it
Agency is I will do it
(I will is different than I can)
What is thing we call hope?
We just love this word but what does it mean? Most of us
have no clue what it means…
I hope this is over soon. I hope that I leave with something of value
That teacher is hopeless! The situation is hopeless.
Hope and Change (Barrack Obama)
He’s got high hopes!
HOPE EQUALS WISHFUL THINKING
FOR MOST OF US.
These is a colloquial definition, but there is a
psychological definition.
C. R Snyder
Hope
is the measure
of our will to achieve a goal,
our agency,
added to our knowledge
of what we have to do to
achieve that goal, pathways,
the ways to achieve a goal
C. R Snyder: Rainbows in the Mind (2002)
THE MORE TECHNICAL DEFINITION OF HOPE
IS THE COMBINATION
OF OUR AGENCY AND PATHWAYS
(C.R. SNYDER-Hope Theory)
GOALS
+
AGENCY
BELIEF, WILINGNESS AND ENERGY THAT WE NEED TO ACHIEVE DO WHAT WE
NEED TO DO TO ACHIEVE OUR GOALS
(WILL POWER)
+
PATHWAYS
BELIEF AND KNOWLEDGE THAT WE KNOW HOW TO ACHIEVE OUR GOALS
AND HAVE MULTIPLE WAYS TO ACHIEVE OUR GOALS (WAY POWER)
FOR YOU IN THE AUDIENCE,
THOSE DEFINITONS MAY SOUND
LIKE GOBBLEDY GOOK
HOPE IS
HOPE IS OUR MEMORY OF THE FUTURE
CRAFTED ON OUR PRESENT AND PAST
EXPERIENCES
HOPE BECOMES OUR BELIEF THAT WE
CAN POSITIVELY SHAPE THAT FUTURE.
Hope Theory:
Children’s Hope Test
1. I think I am doing pretty well.
2. I can think of many ways to get the things in life that
are most important to me.
3. I am doing just as well as other kids my age.
4. When I have a problem, I can come up with lots of
ways to solve it.
5. I think the things I have done in the past will help me
in the future
6. Even when others want to quit, I know that I can find
ways to solve the problem.
Why Hope Matters…
Better predictor of college completion
than SAT, ACT, HS GPA
Four times more likely to not finish
college with low hope than low ability
 Research of Dr. Rose and Dr. Seirup
confirms this statistic locally
demonstrating that low hope students
on probation are at greatest risk of
dropping out.
Shane Lopez Gallop Poll 2012
H
O
P
E
L
E
V
E
L
EMOTIONAL
&
BEHAVIORAL
ENGAGEMENT
G
P
A
Altering a student’s hope level WILL
improve a student’s academic performance.
The Power of Hope and Goals
Hope is not all about school!
Hope matters in every aspect
of our lives
Hope in athletics…
What happens when our hope is
tested?
What is the cold presser test?
What is deliberate practice?
(10,000 Hours)
Hope Feedback and Feedforward Model
SNYDER
PATHWAYS
THOUGHTS
HOPE
THOUGHTS
Grit
•Passion for the
Goal
•Perseverance
for the Goal
pathways
(developmental
lessons of
correlation/
causality)
+
HOPE
EMOTION
SET
Outcome
Value
STRESSOR
agency
(developmental
lessons of self
as author of
casual chains
of events)
AGENCY
THOUGHTS
Surprise
event
Learning History
Pre-Event
Event Sequence
GOAL
attainment/
nonattainment
Grit: We all tend to start out school with high
hope.
Our hope is tested when we face obstacles
Dr. Angela Duckworth
What is that makes us successful in life…
What we get wrong
about
Grit
 Passion for long term
goals
 Perseverance
Who Gets to Graduate?
NY Times: Paul Tough 5/15/14
Vanessa’s Story
Vanessa’s
Story May Be
the Story for
All Children
of Poverty
The
Graduation
Gap
SHATTERING THE ODDS:
Can a School Actually Create
Hope?
Brother Thomas Casey’s Mission
The De La Salle School, Freeport, NY
Ruby Payne: Seminal Work on Generational
Poverty
Although Payne’s (1993) work details the
characteristics of children in poverty, none of those
characteristics appear present in the gentleman of De la
Salle
What are the burdens of poverty ?
a hope in a world that they cannot see in their
present lives and current neighborhoods.
Hope Theory
The best news about
hope is that it is a way
of thinking and
not an emotion that
we are born with. If
can we change our
way of thinking, we
can change our hope.
HOPE BUILDERS.
THE DE LASALLE SCHOOL.
Success--Mastery Experiences
Cheerleaders—Persuaders (The Dr. Phil Rule)
Successful Friends—Vicarious Others
Supportive Community--Positive Climate
HOPE CRUSHERS
Neighborhood Schools As Reported by Students.
Failure—Destroys Willpower (Agency)
Hope Crushers—Destroy Waypower (Pathways)
Unsuccessful Friends—Why do that?
Destructive Community--Negative Climate
CTC: Rob Blount
Hope Factory
Sometimes,
Hope arises not from someone who tells you that
you can do it, but that person who tells you that you
must do it!
External Locus:
Someone who inspires you is the source of
your Hope. at first.
If youCan
believe
you cannot,
A School
Be Dedicated to
you are
probably a
right.
Creating
Culture of Hope?.
If you believe you
can , you are probably
right.
Kevin Rall: Dean of Students
Hope Creator
32
I Dream Big! Martin Luther King Day
What are your dreams? (GOALS)
DEDICATED FACULTY
PERSUADERS
It takes a team…
Volunteers
(MORE
PERSUADERS
Student of the Week
Poet, Artist, Gentleman, Scholar of the Week
(MASTERY EXPERIENCES)
GOALS
FINAL FOUR: MORE THAN
HOOP DREAMS!
Molloy Visit
GOALS/PERSUADERS
College Dreams
EXTRA HELP Weds
Nights
MOLLOY
MENTORS
FAMILY
FOREVER
(Positive Climate)
Life Long Connections
Career Day
Holy Trinity Christmas
Dinner: Vicarious Others
WHILE HAVING A BIT OF FUN
Positive Social Climate
ENVISONING A
SUCCESSFUL FUTURE
I DREAM BIG
What happens after they graduate this
extraordinary middle school? (2008-14)
•Molloy Graduate Student Mentors
Does Hope Float?
Can a designed program change a
student’s hope level?
Research Indicates Hope is Malleable
McDermott and Snyder (2000) worked with culturally diverse students in grades one
to six, presenting the students with high hope stories and asking the students to
identify goals and relate stories to their own life experiences. The pre and post test
results indicated increases in students’ levels of hopeful thinking.
Making Hope Happen for Kids (Edwards and Lopez, 2000) was a five session
program developed to increase hope in fourth graders. This program involved
active learning approaches in which students acted out scenes of hope, created
hope cartoons, played a hope game and reacted to hope stories. Again results
on pre and post tests indicated significant increases in hope levels in the children
involved in the program
Pedrotti , Lopez and Krieshok (2000) developed a version of this same program
for seventh graders based on the Making Hope Happen program.
HOPE Lessons from De La Salle
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
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Setting attainable goals with students through counseling
Exposing students to various colleges and universities via field trips
Conducting weekly award assemblies
Centering mission on Hope Theory and making the creation of Hope the mission of the school
Having faculty make curricular and affective connections to hope theory and grit concept
Increasing students hope levels through the greater agency and pathways opportunities—Future Problem
Solving
State Champs—Mock Trials
Providing insight to the value of education and extracurricular activities
Providing the spiritual foundation that students will need to sustain hope in the face of obstacles
and challenges
Shane Lopez:
Changing the Conversations Our Heads
It takes a team to build hope, it
is not one of us, it is all of us
Here is Edward
Bear…
Is the mission of a school to
impart information or change
the conversation in our heads…
Can these lessons
be applied to other contexts?
What about students who
seem to have lost hope?
The Quiet Crisis:
THE OTHER CONVERSATION
Alternative School Students
Over 600,000 students in America
64% Schools in America.
Storm Clouds in the Mind
Could it be the problem in our alternative
school population is not a lack of ability on the part
of the student, or the teacher, or the materials….
BUT THE FACT THAT THESE
STUDENTS HAVE LOST HOPE?
High Hope:The Other Side of Excuses
Snyder’s Rainbows in the Mind
ORIGINS OF LOW HOPE
Deficits in the primary giver
resulting in low attachment
Stages:
Rage-Despair-Apathy
Research Questions:
Research Question 1: Are hope and grit factorially distinct
from one another?
Research Question 2: Are there significant correlations
among hope, grit, happiness, life satisfaction and academic
achievement?
Research Question 3: Are there statistically significant
differences between alternative school students and
traditional school students in hope, grit, happiness, life
satisfaction, and academic achievement?
Research Question 4: Do hope and grit scores predict
academic achievement beyond happiness and life
satisfaction?
Results for Research Question 3: Are there statistically significant
differences between alternative school students and traditional
school students in hope, grit, behavioral engagement, happiness, life
satisfaction and grade point average?
Results for Research Question 4: Do hope and grit scores
predict grade point average beyond engagement,
happiness, and life satisfaction in student populations?