What is your biggest hope?

By: Grace S.

This is a take on the age-old question ‘what is your biggest fear’. Teachers and students were all asked the same question and where they went with it was up to them.

A= answer that the participant gave

Q= question asked

Teachers

Mrs. Haskins: A “My biggest hope is that someday there will be peace in the world. And I know that that kind of sounds cliché, but, you know, for me, most of the time our world is West Jefferson High School and I would love to see people truly accept people for who they are and appreciate differences and us not just give lip service to it.” Q Can you define ‘lip service’? A “Lip service is we like to say the cliché kind of things. We like to say, ‘Oh, let’s accept people’s differences, but maybe behind their back or in our own minds, that’s not really the case. I think that if we were not giving it lip service, maybe an example would be that social groups, different social groups would actually interact with each other and be friendly. You know, I’ve been around long enough that I’ve seen the meanness on multiple levels and I guess so, my biggest hope is people would be kind to one another. And, to me, that would be accepting of differences.” Q Do you feel like you are a proponent of kindness? A “Yes. I think just by nature I’m kinda happy, I hope people see is the ‘glass half full’ kinda person, and I think by me being that way, I hope others might stop and think ‘Oh, she’s happy, why don’t I be happy?’, because, you know, nothing good comes from the alternative.” Q Do you think you being a high school teacher, since you do get to see so many kids throughout all your years at so many different grade levels and the different social spectrums, do you think that has opened your eyes to this or have you always felt like the world needs more kindness and more acceptance? A “I feel like my eyes have been opened a lot. I will tell you, when I first started teaching here in 1989, I was under this, I don’t know, this idea that every person had been raised the same way that I had been raised, with two parents, relatively stable house and my eyes were opened up at that point. I would say that, I’ll be honest, I was probably pretty still narrow minded, I mean I was only twenty-two years old, but I would say yes, that because of some of the unfortunate and sad encounters that I’ve seen students have, my eyes have been opened to kinder, gentler ways.”

Mrs. Siddiqi: A I guess my biggest hope for society is for people to recognize the value of an education. I think it also applies to my kids, you know my two kids, that was my biggest hope for them growing up, is that they would recognize the value of an education. You know, and my role as a social studies teacher in looking at, in particular like government and governments around the world and also through history, I’ve found that if you have a well-educated society, it will solve a lot of problems that countries have. My hope is that society, if we are looking at the United States, or even a local community, to recognize the value of an education and to support that value, I think would make the world a greater place.” Q So, ‘people recognizing the value of it’, is that the government funding it more or is that the person in a school trying harder? A “Well I think it’s everybody. It’s the government valuing it, I think it’s just society in general. Schools are locally funded; they’re products of their community, so in a way, it almost goes, I guess I would hope more like local communities would recognize, and I’m not saying like that West Jeff doesn’t recognize...I’m just saying in general that would be my goal, to recognize education and to make sure education is promoted or funded, I guess I could say too, and to recognize the value of that and the impact it will have on society.” Q Are you talking about college education? Do you think everyone should go to college? A “Not necessarily. I think there [are] a lot of different ways that people can be educated or have knowledge, and it may not necessarily have to be going to a formal institution. I think we can educate ourselves at home: reading books and on the internet. But just understanding, I guess in my particular discipline, the value of understanding history and where we’ve come and problems we’ve had in the past, and again it’s very cliché, but so that we don’t repeat those problems. And when you have an educated society, you come up with better ways to solve problems. So I don’t think it necessarily has to be formal education...I think I can take that and apply it to my own kids, my students, my community, my state, my country, my world.”

Miss Henry: A “To have to pick one is hard...but I think I’m going to have to go big. My biggest hope is that our world becomes more kind. I don’t feel like we all have our differences and we are all pushing as a culture to be accepting and tolerant of people with a variety of different differences, and I think all of that would just be solved if we were just more kind to each other. A little more compassionate. Offering to help a friend in need, or offering to help a stranger in need. It doesn’t necessarily need to be a friend. I think sometimes we go above and beyond for the people we care for: our family, our friends, our unit. But then to go outside that circle and take care of our neighbors, take care of our colleagues, take care of our classmates, I don’t think we do that all too often. And my hope is that our world just becomes a more kinder place to live.” Q Do you feel like you do that? A “I try. I used to-I don’t say it all that much, but-catchphrase, ‘Kindness is key’ every single time I hear something negative, I just shout it, which might be counterintuitive to what the goal is, but I try. Am I perfect at it? Absolutely not. Especially when it comes to strangers that I don’t know very well, I’m not always the one person to go out of my way to start a conversation or do something, but if people come to me, then I’m a little more comfortable, which is not what my biggest hope is-that you would just do it intuitively. You would go out of your way and just do it without being prompted. So I try, I don’t know if I’m all that great at it, but I try.” Q What do you think the best way to be kind is? A “So there’s a quote out there somewhere that says, ‘Listen to understand, not listen to respond,’ and I think that’s critical. If you listen to what somebody says, either if it’s in a confrontational context or if it’s just in a friendly conversation, I think listening to understand their point of view might be the best way. That’s compassion, that’s learning their side of the story, then you can more productively contribute and help in a particular sense. I would say that would be the thing. Listening to understand, not listening to respond, like how can I one-up this conversation? how can I one-up this argument? Stepping away from that and trying the other method.” Q Do you think this is your biggest hope because you’re an educator and you do see so much unkindness, has that lead into it? A “Maybe a little bit. A lot of people shortchange teenagers. I think there’s a lot more kindness than people would tend to give high schoolers credit for, especially here at West Jeff, I genuinely do think that a lot of students have grown up together from when they were young and a lot of the issues you see in bigger public schools aren’t necessarily the case here. Granted, no school is perfect and there is always drama somewhere, but I don’t see it as much here. I think my biggest hope led me to be here. I think I saw a world that I was like, ‘We need kindness’. How do you build kindness? You teach it. Starting from a younger age and I wasn’t going to be dealing with elementary school kids-absolutely not. But I think that’s maybe a piece of what lead me here.” Q ‘Here’ specifically? Or ‘here’ as a teacher? A “‘Here’ as a teacher. Being a teacher and where I’m at, to be able to continue and push that message, I think you kind of have a bigger platform to do it ‘here’ than I would at another job, if that makes sense.”

Mr. Boettner: A “My biggest hope is that my kids are successful and most importantly happy when they grow up.” Q Do you feel like you could play a part in that? Or do you want them to do it on their own? A “I think I play a primary part in that.” Q Do you have a vision for what you want them to do or as long as they’re happy? A “No, I’d be happy and it’s important to me that they do what makes them happy and I would support them following any avenue-within reason. Nothing nefarious or against the law-hopefully I’ve raised my children well enough that breaking the law is not the thing that would make them happy, right? But anything within reason, so I’m not predisposed to thinking that they have to do this career or that career or, you know, get married, not get married, have kids, not have kids. None of that. Just that they are happy and I guess I would want them being productive, I think that would help them be happy ultimately. But I don’t have a particular plan in mind.” Q And did you say happy and successful or just happy? A “Mostly just happy. Yeah, I want them to be successful, because I think it is easier to be happy, but success can be defined in many ways, right? It doesn’t have to be monetary success or anything like that. But successful in the way that they have set goals and are accomplishing them, and I think that that would provide happiness in a way. Whatever that goal is.”

Freshmen

Bri Davis: A “One big change that I’ve thought of ever since I was little: try to stop tiger extinction because they have been going extinct for a long time because poachers are trying to kill them off just for their pelts. So I’ve always thought of trying to do something to try and stop that.” Q Do you see yourself being a part of the change? Or do you want other people to change it? A “I see myself as part of the change, but I also see other people pitching in too. Kind of how people do fundraisers and stuff, kind of like ‘Save the Animals.’” Q Would you be the fundraiser part? Or would they be the fundraiser part? A “Depends. It might be a while and someone might have already started it before I get the chance to, so if someone hasn’t already started it then I would like to start some sort of fundraiser.” Q Do you see yourself going to school and getting a degree that will allow you to help save the tigers? A “Yes.”

MJ Book: A “To be successful. That’s probably it right there.” Q What do you define as being successful? A “Making my parents proud: going to college, getting a good job, having a good family, make money, be a good role model.” Q How much money do you think you need to make? A “Enough to have a happy life.” Q What do you constitute as a ‘happy life’? A “Food on the table, kids, not a big house, but a house that we all can live in, comfortable spacing.” Q Where do you plan on living? A “West Jeff.” Q Are you doing anything now to prepare yourself to be successful in the future? A “Going to school, getting good grades so I can go to college.”

Kylie Zeoli: A “Well, obviously to graduate high school, then I want to go to college to be a dental hygienist, then maybe in a year or two start my family. That’s pretty much all.” Q Are you doing anything now to prepare yourself for your future? A “I’m just a freshman, but I still study and do everything, I try to keep my grades up there so I can get into a good college. But right now I’m just working hard on homework.” Q How often do you think about your future? A “Honestly, it’s kind of early to think about that stuff, but I do think about it a lot.” Q Do you worry about it, or do you just think about it? A “Sometimes I worry when I’m having trouble in school, like about my grades and everything. I worry about, ‘Oh my gosh, if my grades don’t get better then I’m not going to get into a good college.’ That’s all I worry about, not that often.” Q Do you plan on going to a prestigious college? A “Well I don’t want to go far from home. I haven’t really looked into which colleges do dental hygiene, but I do want to stay close to home so that I don’t have to stay in a college dorm. But I’ve thought about Columbus State.”

Corbin Jeffers: A “My biggest hope is probably after high school to go out and play football for college. Then kind of just like focus on football and get it out of the way and get that and go to college for that and then maybe the NFL and whatnot. That’s what my hope is.” Q Are you doing anything now to prepare yourself for that? A “Yeah. Every morning I go to lifting and we have agilities too. Agilities and lifting. In the summer, before actual football season starts, we go to the weightroom and do a lot of other training stuff outside. I’m also playing another sport to keep my body in shape.” Q Do you think that you are good at football? A “Yeah.” Q Do you think you are good enough to make it in college and then potentially the NFL? A “Right now probably not, but later, I’m hoping. We’ll find out.” Q Are you willing to work for it? A “Yeah. For sure.” Q How often do you think about this being your hope? A “I probably think about it a couple times a day. When people bring up sports, I always think about it. And that’s all people talk about during school, sports going on.”

Sophomores

Gabbie King: A “I would probably have to say making it to the college of my dreams and hoping that it all works out and that I finally get the career that I want to have. Being able to live the life that I’ve always wanted to live, aside from here and just being able to explore and venture out and see more things and do more things.” Q What would you say the life you’ve always wanted to live is? A “Definitely being a journalist in New York City and being able to write scripts for television or just being a sports editor and working for the New York Times possibly.” Q What do you think you are going to do after that? Are you going to find a new thing? A “I don’t know. I’m definitely staying probably in New York. I don’t see myself leaving, because I’ll definitely fall in love with it. Yeah, then maybe becoming an author or being a spokesperson for those who haven’t truly found what they wanted, but want to find what they need in life. I also, can hopefully play basketball, maybe short time as well in college, but that will still keep me going and active.” Q Do you love writing? A “I do. I definitely do.” Q What do you like about writing? A “Being able to express how you feel or how you’re feeling within that moment, just getting things out and letting your voice be heard, and letting people know what you think and what you feel.” “I mean hopefully it all works out and hopefully I make it there one day. I say it a lot, but hopefully I can put that into action soon and be able to make it.” Q Do you think if you don’t make it into NYU, you would do a safety school in Ohio? Or would you try some other school in New York? A “I definitely have Northwestern in mind as an alternative. But if not, I’ve thought about it a lot. And I don’t plan or intend to stay in Ohio, but if I do, maybe Ohio University.”

Danny Turner: A “To not let nobody down.” Q What do you mean by that? A “I want to do what people want me to do. Not be a disappointment, not get in any trouble, not get in debt.” Q Who are the ‘people’? People that you like or anybody? A “Anybody. I don’t want them to think I’m a bad person. I also want them to have a high expectation.” Q So you want to live up to what people think of you? A “Yeah.” Q Who is someone you feel you don’t want to disappoint? A “My grandparents.” Q Why? A “‘Cause my grandparents look at me as a success. My mom, I want her to feel like I did something with my life and I didn’t just throw it all away.” Q What do you constitute as being successful? A “Like have a family, have a nice house, without asking for help financially.” Q So is it a financial thing, or is it being a good person? A “A little bit of both.” Q How do you feel like you could not disappoint people by being a good person? A “Like not get in trouble with the law, stay clean, don’t do drugs.”

Mallory Justus: A “Probably to be happy.” Q What do you mean by that? A “My parents got divorced when I was really young, so I always grew up with anxiety issues and depression and stuff like that. So it’s kind of one of my biggest hopes that I’ll grow up and I’ll just be happy and content with my life. Not feeling like I’m not enough, or that my mental health can take over me, if that makes sense.” Q Do you feel that happiness and contentment are the same thing? A “Not really. To me, contentment is a settling, and happiness is actually genuinely just feeling good about yourself and your life.” Q You just said that you want to have a content life. So do you want to settle or do you want to be happy? A “I want to be happy.” Q Will you settle for settling? Or will you keep going until you’re happy? A “I want to keep going until I’m happy.” Q Do you think that that is something you have control over? A “I feel like I should have control over it. But I don’t think I always will in situations.” Q What do you mean by that? A “What do I mean by that? I don’t want to just settle with somebody because I’m getting older and I’m not happy with who I’m with, you know? That’s what happened with my parents and I don’t want to be like that.” Q Do you feel like you are doing stuff right now to make you happy? Or do you see it as ‘in the future’? A “I think I’m trying. I do therapy and stuff and that’s kind of helping me get there. And I try and focus on being happier, but it’s still a struggle because I’m still kind of young and I don’t have as much experience as I might as I get older about life and the world.”

Cory Ratcliff: A “I can’t say a jokey answer...to have a good life.” Q What do you mean by that? A “Travel. You know, see all that stuff.” Q What else constitutes having a good life? A “Having friends. Being nice.” Q Do you think you do that? A “I try. I try hard, but sometimes it just is hard.” Q Do you think this is something you are able to obtain through your own work or do you think this is something that is just going to happen to you? A “I feel like traveling will have to be my own work, cause that’s a lot of money. And you have to save up for that. But being nice to people, it just kind of happens, like your personality.”

Juniors

Tristen Larson: A “I would have to say my biggest hope would be play four years of college baseball and get drafted to the Major Leagues.” Q How often do you think about that? A “I probably think about it maybe once or twice a week.” Q Do you feel like you are taking steps right now to be able to accomplish that? A “Yes, but at the same time, no because I’m doing stuff to help me, but I could be doing more.” Q Why aren’t you doing more if that’s your biggest hope? A “It’s just time. I don’t really have enough time for it.” Q What more could you be doing? A “Work on my technique, just practice more. And weight lifting-stuff like that.” Q What team do you want to go play for? A “I prefer to play for the Yankees, but honestly I don’t really care. I just want to play.” Q Do you love baseball? A “Yes.” Q If you obtain being in the Major Leagues, will you still play baseball? A “If I don’t go to the Major Leagues, definitely want to coach baseball.” Q Is that what you want to do for your career? A “I either want to be a trainer or a teacher-and then coach baseball.”

Kyle Howard: A “I hope I’m never broke-or never have money problems.” Q What do you constitute ‘money problems as’? A “Not having money. Or not being able to pay for things.” Q Is there an amount that you want to make? A “I want to be able to to not just get by. I want to have more money to go buy fishing stuff.” Q Fish? Like an aquarium? A “No, like fishing.” Q Are you doing anything now to prepare yourself to ‘not be broke’? A “No. I don’t plan on going to college, so.” Q What do you think you are going to do then? A “I’m gonna go get an apprenticeship to be an electrician.” Q That’s so fun! Cause they make good money, right? A “Yeah. They need more people right now, so it’s in high demand, or whatever.” Q Is that what you want to do with your life? A “Probably, yeah.” Q Is having money more important to you than being happy? A “Nah. I’ve been thinking about it sometimes and if I was homeless, and I had my fishing poles, I’d be happy.” Q So then why do you want to make money? A “‘Cause I don’t want to be homeless at the same time. I want to be clean.” Q So you think you are always going to be happy, but you’d prefer to not be broke? A “I hope so. Yeah. Prefer not to.”

Bailey Adkins: A “I hope to set up a good enough life for myself that I can make my kids as happy as they can be and that they grow up having as good of a life as they can” Q What do you constitute a good life as? A “Not being spoiled but having everything they need. Never having to worry about money or feeling like they can’t have what they want. I don’t want them to be spoiled, like I said, but I want them to have the things that they want.” Q Is that just possessions or it that also…? A “Happiness, like if my kids ever had to have tutoring I could afford to get them tutoring or help if they needed therapy or something like that. I want them to have everything they would need.” Q Do you think you are doing anything now to help you achieve that? A “Yeah, I think that the reason I work harder in school, for the most part, I mostly think ahead of the time to when I have a family, like that’s mostly what I’m setting up for.” Q When you are doing something, are you doing it thinking ‘I’m doing this for my children’ or are you just doing it now? A “I really do look ahead a lot to the future for my kids. Everytime I think about what college I want to go to and what career I want to have, I think about ‘Am I going to make enough to support my children, while still being able to be with my children and not always be gone?’ Yeah, I think about it a lot. Having a family is really important to me and having a happy family is even more important.”

Sydney Lohr: A “My biggest hope would be having time to live my life before the world ends.” Q Are you scared of the world ending? A “Yes.” Q When do you think the world will end? A “I don’t know. Trump kind of scares me because I am worried about nuclear warfare and I’m just terrified of all the terrorist things that are happening. So I just want time to live my life before everything in America becomes ruins.” Q What do you define being successful as? A “Going to college, having a family. Not becoming famous or anything, but ‘successful’ as in I’m not a total loser. That I have everything that I want to do fulfilled.” Q When you say the world ending, it’s not like a death and an end, it’s just when things start going bad? A “I think kind of both, like if the rapture is...well you can’t really do anything more. Of course I’m terrified of that, but I’m also terrified of do you know how in Afghanistan everything was a warzone? I’m terrified of that because that means everything will be different; going to college will be different and it would just change everything.”

Seniors

Aaron Harper: A “Not necessarily that I’m successful in life, but that I’m able to get a job that I don’t hate, I somewhat enjoy. And that I have a stable enough income that I’m not stressed out all the time.” Q What type of job do you think you might not hate completely? A “I was gonna go to college for mechanical engineering. I’ve always enjoyed stuff like that and I didn’t know exactly what I wanted, and that was the most broad of what I enjoy. So hopefully something that involves hands on.” Q Are you doing anything to prepare yourself for being successful? A “I do small things, but not necessarily anything I would do to help further my…” Q Don’t you go to the Innovation Center a lot? A “Oh, I did. But I stopped going because I had other things to do and I looked at everything that was there.” “With the hands on part, I got to see a bunch of different things, like how they work and try and build things that would work. So that was pretty cool.”

Mardi Bartholomew: A “My biggest dream, I guess, is to graduate high school and then graduate college, get a career, build a life for myself, have kids and a husband. That’s pretty much it.” Q Are you doing anything else to prepare yourself for the future? A “I applied to colleges and stuff and I’m applying for scholarships and grants. Trying to not do as many loans because college is expensive and loans are hard to pay off. Just trying to prepare for that aspect. Other than that, I’m just trying to graduate high school.” Q How often would you say you think about your hope? A “Recently quite a bit, just because I am getting ready to graduate and I am a senior, so I would say quite a bit. Three times a week, four times a week, I don’t know, just a lot.” Q Since yours is a lifelong thing, will there ever be a point that you don’t think about it as much and it just becomes your daily routine? A “I would say probably after I graduate either college or I get married, that’ll probably just take its course. I won’t think about it, stress over it so much.”

Michael Catapano: A “For a career path, I aspire to be a teacher, preferably in the government field, and I want to inspire others to be involved in government, just as I have been here at West Jefferson. So that’s mostly why I want to be a government teacher.” Q Who inspired you to do that? A “Mrs. Siddiqi.” Q How do you see yourself achieving that? A “I have a college that I’m going to be attending...the speciality of Ohio Dominican-it started as a school for teaching. That’s one of the best majors that they have. And I’m going to job shadow teachers at Tolles and I’m going to get out in the field of teaching so I can accomplish that and get into that field.”

Abbie Branham: A “To fall in love.” Q Why is that your biggest hope? A “It’s also my biggest fear, falling in love. I just hope to love the same person forever and genuinely be in love with someone. Love is the strongest feeling in the world, I think. And to be in love with someone is a beautiful thing. So that’s just my biggest hope.” Q Do you feel like you have genuine love right now? A “I’m in high school, I’m only seventeen. So I don’t know how genuine it is, but it’s a good love.” Q Is love also the strongest emotion from your friends and from your family? A “Yeah, I hope to just be surrounded by love. Right now, I’m surrounded by people that say they love me, but I know that they don’t. I’ve been that way since I was little, a lot of people would just say they love you, but they only love you because they see you five times a week, or they feel like they have to. I feel like once I get out of high school and go to college, I get to choose who I want to see every day, I get to choose who I surround myself with. And I want it to be people that love me and love themselves. I just want to love my life too. I want to fall in love with my life and who I am.”