Building Resilience Thoughts from Our Principal

Welcome to Term 2. 

I’d like to talk to you a little about resilience and the importance of making mistakes when we’re learning. Too often we can be quick to judge mistakes as a problem, rather than recognising them as vital to learning. This goes to the absolute importance of building resilience in our students, ourselves and our community. Mistakes are not of themselves bad; they are opportunities for learning.

Welcome to Term 2.

 

I’d like to talk to you a little about resilience and the importance of making mistakes when we’re learning. Too often we can be quick to judge mistakes as a problem, rather than recognising them as vital to learning. This goes to the absolute importance of building resilience in our students, ourselves and our community. Mistakes are not of themselves bad; they are opportunities for learning.

 

Ask yourself this…Do you hit the 'bull’s eye' every time?  If so, you may be standing too close to the target. Is the level of challenge appropriate for someone like you? Do you have the opportunity to get it wrong and learn from that experience?

 

As film-maker Woody Allen puts it "If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign that you are not doing anything very innovative or challenging". This is very strong language from Allen, but I think the principle of what he’s saying is relevant and pertinent to our work as learners and teachers.


For some people, the fear of failing or getting something wrong may paralyse them from action.  This could be noticeable in ourselves and our children when we resist, procrastinate or use excuses to avoid taking action. Whilst fear is a normal and healthy feeling, we have to manage that within ourselves and our students to ensure that we don’t let fear of failure stand in the way of progress, of further achievement and of new and exciting ventures.

 

Fear of failure may stop students from pursuing new challenges and new opportunities. As a school and as a community we must continue to build support in our language, practices and processes that strongly encourage all learners to take risks, to accept challenges and to feel safely supported to take these risks.

Resilience is that quality that helps us stretch our comfort zone; push past our fear, and do the crucial things that sometimes we might try to avoid.  In the same way that your body builds muscle from physical training, so too do we build resilience from exposure to challenges, dealing with complex situations and the trial and error nature of the learning process. It matters and it makes a difference

 

Michael Licenblat, in his work on resilience, says that “Everyone has a 'Risk Muscle' that needs to be kept in shape by trying new things and risking failure.  The key, just like going to the gym, is to start slow, easy, but do it frequently.  True success doesn't necessarily come from what you know, but lies in your ability to apply what you know in the face of resistance, fear, and challenging circumstances.:”


I believe that schools have a crucial role in building resilience in young people and communities. There is intentional work we can do and structures we can put into place to put resilience ‘right up there’ as an area of our work with students that we should esteem and value highly. I’m very pleased with how our Connections work is taking shape and with the opportunity for using that time for this work.

 

A phrase I use often is that “language is culture”. Our use of language has such an impact on our relationships and interactions at home and work. In order to truly enhance our culture of resilience at school, one simple step we can take is to ensure that our language of mistake-making for learners is positive and constructive.

 

If every student, in every class, answers every question right, every time, we need to raise the challenge, allow mistakes to happen and relish that learning opportunity.

 

Nathan Chisholm

Principal

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