Lisa Edwards admits it sounds difficult to measure a child's level of hope, an intangible and mutable characteristic.
But as coordinator of a program called "Making Hope Happen" at East Heights Elementary school, the Kansas University graduate student in counseling psychology said she tries to boost levels of hope in children and show how that can improve other areas of their lives.
A mentoring program at East Heights School pairs Kansas University graduate students with fourth-graders. Discussing goals and playing games Wednesday are, from left, Mindy Stroda, Monique Fannin, David Peres, Lisa Edwards, Chris Nieto, Chance Fannin and Josh Hernandez.
"It's our belief that children have inherent strengths, and we're trying to foster them," Edwards said. "We teach that you have goals and you're always going to have obstacles, but the power lies in being able to get around those obstacles."
Edwards, along with five other graduate students, spends one hour a week at East Heights, 1430 Haskell Ave., working with a group of 15 students. They discuss stories and play games, but it's not just for fun. Through the exercises, the KU students show the fourth-graders how to harness their willpower the energy needed to reach a goal and how to use "waypower" which they define as the capacity to generate different pathways to that goal.
"We try to get them looking at other routes," said Dr. Shane Lopez, assistant KU professor of counseling psychology and program founder. "That way, if you hit a roadblock, you have other paths to reach your goal. Some kids don't have that power, but we believe that all kids have some degree of hopeful thinking."
He said low levels of hope lead to frustration and anxiety.
"But we teach that's the time to stop, look around, ask for help," he said. "You have to believe that there are other things you can do."
The program is based on research Lopez began about a year ago. He noticed that there is a positive relationship between hopeful thinking and "the good things in life," he said.
Hopeful thinking, Lopez said, correlates highly with academic and athletic achievement, an optimistic outlook and even good physical health.
"If a kid has anxiety or depression, psychologists usually try to alleviate that," he said. "But we want to give kids the power to buffer themselves against the ills of the world."
The students are in the fourth week of a five-week stint at East Heights. Another group also is conducting the same research at Central Junior High, 1400 Mass., where it worked with a small group of students last semester.
Jennifer Pedrotti, coordinator of the CJH program, said it had been successful and would like continue.
"It's such a positive thing for these kids," she said. "We don't change their lives, obviously, but it's really neat to see a noninterested kid really get into something. And it's also nice to give back to the community. It's sometimes easy in academia to get stuck in an ivory tower."
No comments
Commenting is turned off for this story.