Hands of Hope

"Hope is amazing. You can't touch it but you can definitely feel it. You can't physically see it by itself, but you can hold and carry it. Hope doesn't weigh anything but it can ground you and anchor you..."

Emma’s P3 classroom is all-eyes as we share stories from CT Walker Magnet School. This class is connected to Ms. Evan’s 3^rd graders at CT Walker, but we can’t resist sharing another fable – this time we explore the importance of working before playing by reading about The Ant and The Grasshopper. Page-by-page, we share tales of kindness. We never tire of the synchronicities and magical coincidences that happen in these exchanges. One child in Augusta wrote about the day of her adoption, and how it was the happiest day of her life. This story lands in the lap of Eyram, one of our scholarship recipients and a near orphan herself.  We reflect that no matter where we find ourselves in life, knowing and sharing stories of similar plights can remind us that we are never entirely alone; these connections and parallels give hope – the kind you can feel.

Doris’ s P6 students put together pieces of the world map puzzle with greater ease than in the past. They soak in a world of possibilities, which they themselves can create cross-culturally, as they survey the hands, covered in expressions of hope, placed around the globe from Vail Mountain School. They share their ideas about how to communicate and display their personal messages of hope and they vote democratically to decide which sentiment will serve as the center for their poster. The winner, by a landslide, is “Happy World for Our Future”.  Cheers and smiles spread, infectiously and playfully, through the classroom.

After break we join the EP JSS 1 class across the street to share letters and family trees sent from St Andrew’s School 8^th graders. These are teenagers, and not unlike their friends in America, it takes a little while for them to settle into focus and to work earnestly – but they do.  Their concentration is intense; they work quietly and independently, using rulers to make clear connections among and between the generations outlined on their personal family trees.  The process of drawing out the roots of their existence seems to anchor them, comfortably, to their seats and they complete their projects for their new friends.