As part of our social-emotional curriculum, each month we choose a topic to study and practice as an entire school community. This month’s topic is Resilience and Positive Risk-Taking. Little did we realize how timely this topic would be when Jess Howard proposed it last year. The events of the past few days and weeks have certainly required compassion and resilience from us all, some more than others. As challenging and unprecedented as several recent events have been, one thing we can count on is that life will bring us challenges and changes.
Building resilience is not only helpful but a necessary skill for riding the waves of a challenge as well as periods of joy. Resilience is not about “getting over” things or being unaffected by them. Rather, it is having the courage to move through experiences and incorporate them into who we are as individuals. The courage to move through hard things is just as important as the courage to sink into and take in positive experiences instead of grasping to hold on. Indeed, resilience requires equal parts vulnerability and honesty as it does courage and strength. Recent events are certainly testing our ability to model resilience ourselves as well as recognize it in others, but our kids are born with the capacity for great resilience and we have the opportunity to move through together with honesty, vulnerability, courage, and compassion. We look forward to sharing some examples from our classrooms of ways that we are practicing resilience and positive risk-taking and also look forward to hearing examples from each of you.