Life will be hard – Student Thoughts on Adversity

This is the final product of “Invictus”, a project from The Community School in Spokane, Washington. TCS is a project based choice high school, a member of The New Tech Network and Spokane Public Schools.

This quarter-long project began in March 2019, with nine successive guest speakers from the greater Spokane area. Students interviewed these working professionals in pursuit of a foundational question: “What’s the value of human life, according to your profession?” Students sat with an accountant who actually makes these determinations in civil suits, a malpractice lawyer, a hospital chaplain, a hospice care nurse, representatives of three major faiths, a fireman and a veteran who completed five tours and was wounded while serving our county.

As you can imagine, opinions varied.

With these professionals to guide them– and supported by rigorous texts– students made their own determination on how we should value human life.

With this existential question put to rest, student turned their attention to yet another light topic: looming fate.

They explored the guiding question “How should we deal with adverse fate?” by investigating those who contended with adversity in positive and sometimes self-destructive ways (see: Oedipus). Students formulated well-founded and evidence-based positions on how we should effectively encounter the setbacks and tragedies that will surely come.

Students packaged their efforts into a comprehensive and compelling direct-to-camera speech. Their thinking, their stories, and their strategies, have been cut up and compiled here.

TCS made this project available to support The OneHeart Call vision.