From the Principal
Watching the TV news each night, I am increasingly amazed at the sense of hopelessness one can be left with after an hour of gloom and doom reporting. It sometimes seems that the media go out of their way to assure us that around every corner lies increased risk of disease, death and disaster – in fact we are lucky we are still alive! No wonder young people suffer from anxiety, engage in risk-taking behaviours and suffer depression at alarming rates. Without hope, what is the point of life and we are left wondering how we will get through the day.
Much research has been done on the value and importance of hope for human beings. In an article by Shorey and Snyder from the University of Kansas, they report the following: "What enables a young person to succeed in the classroom? Contrary to popular belief, intelligence and ability are not the answers (Dweck, 1999). Sometimes the brightest students fail to achieve in school or realize their potential, whereas other less talented individuals thrive and even excel in the face of adversity. The difference between these two kinds of students may lie in their levels of hope. Hope (Snyder et.al., 1991) is defined as the process of thinking about one’s goals, along with the motivation to move towards those goals (agency) and the ways to achieve those goals (pathways). Hope, in this sense is not an emotion but rather a dynamic, cognitive, motivational process. Emotions follow cognition in the process of goal directed thinking (Snyder, 1994)."
The authors go on to say, “… high-hope people experience less anxiety specifically in test-taking situations."
Kirsten Weir, writing for the American Psychological Association (2013) and quoting Lopez says, “Lopez describes three basic steps for building hope. The first is a process he calls 'future-casting' — envisioning a specific future goal in a way that makes it come alive."
The next step, Lopez says, is to work toward your goal — in other words, create the pathways that are central to Snyder's model of hope ...
The final step is planning for contingencies. Lopez has found most hopeful people tend to see multiple solutions to a problem, while the hopeless plan only for the best-case scenario and come up with just one or two pathways to their target, Lopez says, "You have to come up with many ways to overcome those obstacles."
We can see the necessity and value of hope but what do we put our hope in? So often we are encouraged to put it in ourselves but then we fail and our hope is shattered. Or we put it in other people or organisations who then let us down. For Christians, we put our hope in the accounts in the Scriptures of a faithful and powerful God who is able to make things happen and who never fails. We put our hope in the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe.
The Psalmist writes – "Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God. (42:5)". Our hope is not just a future hope of ultimate restoration, but a present hope of God being with us in the turmoil of life and securing a future for us.
At GPCC, we trust that our students come to understand this and to put their hope in God who then enables them to step forward confidently to fulfill their purpose.
Phillip Nash
Principal