Hope is like an art

"Hope is like an art. Before painting, I have a thought in my mind. Then I put layer after layer, and hope it turns out how I thought to begin with."

A student of Bangladeshi heritage told me this during a hope and aspiration research workshop at the Department of Education of the University of Oxford. She wasn't a philosopher, nor was she being poetic. She was trying to express what hope means to her.

While doing that, she said something that no academic structure I have come across has managed to phrase this well. I keep going back to that last phrase —“hope it turns out how I thought to begin with.” Not certainty. Absolutely no confidence, more like a long-held act of faith in the processes — a willingness to keep constructing layers when the finished piece is far from certain.

This is what I came to Oxford to study. The more research I do, the more I think about Bangladesh.

Inside Oxford's Education Department, my work ties into a John Fell Fund effort watching how UK sixth-formers from Bangladeshi and Pakistani backgrounds choose paths after school. Not limited to forms posted online, we step into conversation, sit across in shared spaces like local centres. Around gathered circles, hands-on sessions unfold where mothers and fathers shape storytelling wishes not by ticking lines but weaving them word by word. What matters becomes clear not through data alone, but through voices rising slowly in trusted rooms. When reports differ from true feelings - and surveys usually catch only the first - the real puzzle becomes clear.

Young people's visions for the future matter deeply. Yet what sparks these hopes often hides in quiet moments, not loud claims. Motivation slips away before plans begin. Why does the drive fade so fast?

What do young people in Bangladesh dream of? Nearly everyone says similar things when asked. A solid school path. Work that lasts. A future worth the struggles families went through.

This work draws on Snyder’s Hope Theory. According to Snyder, hoping is not just a feeling; it is more about thinking in a certain way. Because without knowing there's a route forward, determination alone turns into restlessness. Inside each person aiming high must live the sense that they can push toward what matters - that part is called agency. Yet still another piece sits beside it: seeing paths clearly, recognising options within reach. When those two parts show up together, only then does real momentum form. Without one, the other falters.

Hope creeps into my thoughts right now. These routes, taken without choice, become directions no one follows. Again, it shows—the students we work alongside clearly act on their own. Their wishes take shape through words. Reaching their aims matters to them. Even when cracks appear, they do not falter; they follow the signs that were already there.

What do young people in Bangladesh dream of? Nearly everyone says similar things when asked. A solid school path. Work that lasts. A future worth the struggles families went through. Wanting these isn't the issue. Never was. Yet, along the way, quiet changes happen. They slip in unseen. Tiny instances pile up—an advisor unsure how to guide someone with few resources, application rules built for students with different pasts, job gates opened only to those taught skills many classrooms skip. These gaps grow where support should be.

One saying keeps showing up in talks between young Bangladeshis lately: "To get out of Bangladesh is every local's top wish." People toss it around like humour. Yet such lines often hide real feelings underneath. It points not at the lost drive, but at the missing clear roads forward. Learners still picture better lives. They doubt those pictures can come true where they are right now. What sets them apart matters more than you'd think.

What catches my attention during the research sessions isn’t dramatic. A quiet shift happens when people are invited to speak. Students, along with their families, begin shaping thoughts out loud—in words they choose, through pictures that matter to them. These aren’t sudden dreams emerging. What surfaces instead are older wishes, once kept low or nearly forgotten, now voiced—seen by others and passed between them.

A student called ‘hope’ a painting—perhaps she had never tried putting it into words until then. She had never thought of it as hers to name. A discovery sits here, yet it also brings unease. Questions form about learners everywhere—London, Dhaka, beyond—who carry silent paintings inside their heads. Nobody has paused to wonder what colours those thoughts take on.

Even harder: some who might listen have quietly ruled the dreams impossible before hearing them.

What hides behind closed classroom doors is seldom hate. Often, it is just quiet assumptions wearing common-sense clothes.

Although the dynamics have changed, the structure stays the same. Agency is present, and arguably more fierce than almost anywhere. What remains inconsistent are the pathways: the effort–outcome relationship, and the legibility and stability of the rules.

A student called ‘hope’ a painting—perhaps she had never tried putting it into words until then. A discovery sits here, yet it also brings unease. Questions form about learners everywhere—London, Dhaka, beyond—who carry silent paintings inside their heads. Nobody has paused to wonder what colours those thoughts take on.

Suppose the evaluation process takes into consideration the factors affecting the education of a student from a rural district, compared to that of a student from a prep school in Dhaka. Consider hope as a cognitive system rather than a feeling, which shows that one cannot simply be motivated to hope. When motivating students, it is important to consider the context of the environment they are in.

Hope, in Snyder’s sense, is not an attitude. It is a reaction to what institutions do. This means the question facing every educational system—including Bangladesh’s—is not how to instil greater optimism in students. It is what the system itself is communicating, daily and structurally, about whose effort is rewarded.

I can still hear the student who spoke about hope as a painting. The patience in what she described. The layering. The uncertainty balanced with commitment. I wonder how many students in Bangladesh are doing just that—building layer by layer, mentally visualising, and attempting to trust the process. I ponder what systems surround them that would need to justify such blind faith. It is a monumental task, but it is the most relevant.

Dr Sahariar Rahman is a Research Associate in the Department of Education, University of Oxford. He can be reached at md.rahman@education.ox.ac.uk. The co-authors are part of the research team at the same department, working on the Oxford Hope and Aspiration Project.

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