“Don’t teach your kids to fear the world,” writes Arthur C. Brooks, public intellectual and happiness researcher at Harvard. “Teaching them that the world is a dangerous place is bad for their health, happiness, and success.” This is a great message for K-12 school educators to remember as they head back to school this year. There is no doubt teachers face a heavy task. They are not only delivering content or raising test scores. They are shaping the hearts and minds of a generation grappling with what can feel like relentless gloom.
Turn on the news—or browse the average social studies curriculum—and it is hard to escape the drumbeat of crisis. Climate catastrophe, democratic collapse, political assassinations, economic inequality, racial injustice, mass shootings, mental health epidemics, and disruption from artificial intelligence. The list is long and, for many young people, it is overwhelming. Educators rightly want students to be aware of the world’s problems. But in the process, they may unintentionally teach gloom and despair.
Today, it is not enough for educators to sound the alarm. Rather, the job of teachers and professors is to equip young people with the mindset and motivation to face an uncertain world with agency, purpose, and—above all—hope. Here are five ways to do this during this new school year.
The first step is to recognize that hope is more than an attitude, but a practice that can be learned.
