Resilience; a pupil's perspective

In an earlier entry, I said that my blog would deal with the idea of resilience. I thought I would begin this series with an account written by one of the boys in my Boarding House. As a Housemaster (or any teacher or parent), you know that boys do not always talk about problems and can often bottle up their emotions. Some boys misunderstand the idea of resilience as meaning that they have to 'man up'. I have had several pupils over my 14 years of teaching that have had to learn how to become resilient and have had to learn to talk about their issues, worries and know that offloading does not mean dwelling and wallowing.

I asked one of theses boys to write an account of 'what resilience means to you' and here is the product (it has not been edited or altered in any way).







The Oxford Dictionaries definition for resilience is: The capacity to recover quickly from difficulties. To me resilience means more than that, to me resilience is the ability to see the best of a bad situation for example you don’t remember your lines in a school play. Here you could either stand awkwardly on a stage or add a bit of improv, which will show how you can deal with a situation that isn’t ideal for you to be in. This proves that you are resilient and can stand strong in times where things aren’t going how you would’ve liked them to, making you stand out from the crowd.


I believe that resilience is one of the most important character traits to have since it shows a lot about you as a person. Are you someone that just gives up at the first sight of a challenge? or do you try to work through it and use it as a learning experience so you can handle challenges better in the future. Resilience also links very closely with fixed and growth mindsets. Someone with resilience has a growth mindset and will leap at the chance for a challenge that will, in turn, expand their knowledge. However, someone who is not resilient has a fixed mindset and avoids challenges, limiting their capabilities of learning and gaining new knowledge.


I learnt the importance of resilience after dealing with an emotionally challenging year. I could’ve easily bailed on life and stuck my head in the sand. Instead of avoiding the issue I decided to face it head on and utilise the support I had access to. This was one of the best decisions of my life since I am still here today holding my head high whatever the circumstances. So, with resilience at the forefront of my mind, I am approaching 2018 with a smile on my face ready to go up against any challenges that are thrown my way, knowing that whatever happens I will always have help available if I need it.

So that is the start of the resilience conversation. There will be many more posts and points of view presented over the coming months but no matter what the academics say, no matter what research is read or created about resilience - the only thing that matters is what it means to each individual pupil. Their ability to mine into their own resilience will mean that they can also make it to the next day, make it to the next problem and hopefully without ever having to realise that there was a real issue in the first place.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Jonathan Pitt 'a Day in the Life of a Housemaster'

Is Pupil Voice Really all its Cracked up to be? An analysis by Jonathan Pitt

Why self harm? an article by Jonathan Pitt