This page describes the four Seeds of Hope and serves as the launching page for more detailed pages about each Seed.
A Culture of Hope utilizes four "Seeds of Hope" which provide the social/emotional learning that high-poverty students need.
Initial strategies for implementing "Second Wave Research" on school improvement begins with surveying staff and students to see which Seeds of Hope are in place, and which need more support.
In Building a Culture of Hope, we delineate a specific strategy/sequence of events for assessing the Seeds of Hope in Chapter 8.
The process begins with creating a team of stakeholders, including administrators, teachers, paraprofessionals, specialists, parents, students, and community members.
The team then proceeds through a sequence of steps to create, analyze, and use survey data:
- Survey stakeholders on a particular Seed of Hope.Create surveys or adapt surveys. (Please see Seeds of Hope pages above for downloadable examples of surveys you may use/adapt).
- Summarize responses in easily accessible, visual formats.
- Discuss differences/similarities within groups and between groups (i.e. between boys and girls, or between students, parents, and staff).
- Discuss diverse perspectives and beliefs regarding what the data means or could explain.
- Resolve differences discovered in #4.
- Come to consensus about what is most important in the data.
- Formulate school goals based on #6.
- Collaborate in taking action to meet goals.
- Monitor progress on goals.
- Refine interventions and prepare for new surveys to assess progress, and begin again with #1.
These steps are explained in great detail on pages 155-159 in Building a Culture of Hope.