Renewing a radical pedagogy of hope as a ‘hope-in-classroom-praxis’: An insight from Germany

The article revisits ‘hope’ as the central goal of everyday schooling for both teachers and pupils. Hope is understood as a critically informed doing-and-living hope. The paper calls for reckoning with the radical pedagogy of hope as a proactive classroom practice. I propose a teacher-led, proactive classroom exercise, facilitated by a ‘hopedoing questioning’ approach. That approach is designed to encourage young learners to recognise and believe in the potential and possibilities they have not previously been able to reckon with. Drawing on my experience as a parent of a neurodivergent minority child in key stages 2 and 3 in both public and private schools in East Berlin between 2020 and 2025, I shed light on the perils of a German functionary pedagogy. A functionary and deterministic pedagogy centred on teacher authority, disciplinary sanctioning and exclusion inevitably undermines genuine human dialogue and change. To counteract this, a simple but radical shift of focus in the everyday classroom environment is required – from one that focuses on curriculum delivery and quick disciplinary fixes, often involving the dismissal of children with difficulties, to the conscious practice of a ‘hopeful dialogue’ between teachers and pupils.