This quote - from Life's Little Instruction Book (by H. Jackson Brown Jr.) - was an important motto for me as a teacher. We teachers constantly evaluate student performance. But our assessment should focus on strengths and areas for improvement. It should never take away the hope that students can eventually succeed, if they want to enough to put in the required effort.
I often think of words as seeds. When we talk or write, we are planting ideas. But we never know which idea-seeds will flourish. (The soil also needs to be receptive for them to grow.)
I remember once as a student being told that my writing was lacking. At the same time, the professor commented that this was inevitable when one spent the day switching between two languages. She added that her writing style had gotten worse over the years as well.
Although I initially took her comments to mean that I wasn't a good writer, she didn't really devoid me of hope. But I knew I would have to spend time improving my style and developing a writer's "voice" that I was happy with.
Whether we like it or not, comments of teachers, parents and friends plant seeds of hope (or sadness and despair).
And sometimes we really need hope. When my mother - at age 88 - was diagnosed with breast cancer, I didn't know what to think. So I called my aunt Zilla in Edmonton. I knew that one of her relatives had had breast cancer a few years before.
After answering my questions, my aunt suddenly blurted out: Tell your mother it isn't hopeless. My next-door neighbor had breast cancer 10 years ago, and she just celebrated her 100th birthday last week!
Now that was the kind of hope my mother and I needed to hear!
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