"Hope dies last..."

Browsing through LinkedIn this morning, I came across a post shared by a friend of mine about AI use in Education. I could get onboard with the original author's premise that AI tools need to be applied in support of long-overdue shifts necessary in the British school system. She listed 4 "practical first steps" in order to rebuild education within this new AI-world order. Her post could be seen as an awareness-raising piece with a call to action.

This link takes you to the post.

Underneath this shared post, there was an exchange between my friend and another colleague. From the colleague's vehement (aggressive?) response to my friend's posting of the piece, I got the sense of someone completely disillusioned with "education" and the "system". Again, something with which I suspect many educators can relate. We have collectively been shouting into the wind for generations. I can understand why teachers are upset / angry with how poorly education is often delivered in many places. Based on the colleague's claim that the "incentive and ability to think critically (objectively analyze and evaluate a situation in order to make a judgement) was systematically destroyed in public school", I suspect this is probably a criticism levelled at a North American education system rather than uniformly all education systems around the globe. (Although, I was recently bemoaning a similar state of affairs with my colleague about our first year business students at the university where we teach in Austria...).

As someone who strives constantly to encourage critical reflection and questioning (of me as well as material we might be reading), I did feel such a sweeping statement somewhat blinkered. But then when we're enraged by a system we feel powerless to change, we are more likely to think in black and white, forgetting nuance, shades of grey and exceptions. The saddest part of being so insensed is that we lose sight of the little pearls of hope; the examples of those actually striving to make a difference in their little corners of the world.

A quick search online resulted in stories of where educators are working on making a difference:

Education News posted about educators from around the world on Jan. 9, 2025: 16 Inspiring Stories of Educators Making a Difference.

Global Citizen posted in March, 2017 about 10 Inspirational Teachers who are Transforming Education.

In the UK, Nesta is "an innovative foundation" which works on "turning bold ideas into reality and changing lives for the better". Reading the webpage through a "critical lens", one could dismiss its claims as political smoke and mirrors; but what about the real people working on the frontline striving to make a difference? They need to be encouraged and thanked for their efforts despite the seeming lack of change at the Macro-level.

Not forgetting how much of the world is a state of war at the moment, there are educators in such places working together. This article uses the example of Northern Ireland's Shared Education model applied to the Arab-Jewish societal context within Israel.

On a personal level, I have spoken with colleagues who teach in Ukraine; these are exceptional educators who are not only continuing to teach in schools and universities (OECD, July 2025) during a war, they are taking care of each other too: British Council sponsored Teaching and Learning in Difficult Times, specifically for English language teachers in Ukraine.

I appreciate how heavy the woes of the world currently lie on many of us, never mind the ongoing systemic education issues, but keeping in mind that "Die Hoffnung stirbt zuletzt" (hope dies last) helps lift my flagging spirits. Looking for examples of those who are making a difference, no matter how large or small, can remind us to occasionally focus our attention there, rather than on the doom-and-gloom everywhere else.