On Hope and Urban School Reform
Hope is both rational and emotional.
Faced with a lethal illness and the probability of dying within months, some patients knowing the facts of their illness and the inevitable arc of the disease have surprised their doctors by their resilience, determination, and, yes, hope in living years rather than months.
And there are those patients who do not want their doctor to recount the facts of their illness, its probable trajectory, and what is reasonable to do and expect. Avoiding decisions over the inevitable trade-offs involved in any “cure,” these patients find refuge in alternative treatments. They willfully embrace the emotion of hope but ignore the realities of their condition. In effect, they chase false hopes.
Yes, I know that the distinction I make between real and false hopes in patients faced with a terminal disease is blurry. Nonetheless, I believe there is a qualitative difference in these two kinds of hope. A clearer distinction can be
Faced with a lethal illness and the probability of dying within months, some patients knowing the facts of their illness and the inevitable arc of the disease have surprised their doctors by their resilience, determination, and, yes, hope in living years rather than months.And there are those patients who do not want their doctor to recount the facts of their illness, its probable trajectory, and what is reasonable to do and expect. Avoiding decisions over the inevitable trade-offs involved in any “cure,” these patients find refuge in alternative treatments. They willfully embrace the emotion of hope but ignore the realities of their condition. In effect, they chase false hopes.
Yes, I know that the distinction I make between real and false hopes in patients faced with a terminal disease is blurry. Nonetheless, I believe there is a qualitative difference in these two kinds of hope. A clearer distinction can be