RESILIENCE MATTERS!

We are waiting for a new curriculum framework and Martin Seligman, Carol Dweck and Alison Duckworth all stress that resilience is a key aspect of success in learning and whether you are a parent, a teaching assistant, a teacher, a headteacher or a Director of Learning this is a critical issue!

I was looking on-line and I found an article that talked about five ways to improve resilience and ensure long-term, positive impact on teaching and learning.

1. What do you believe in? What can we learn from an examination of our beliefs and how might they impact on our work in the classroom? Are we aware that our emotions tend to follow our beliefs? With this in mind, how can we challenge our beliefs? 
2. How are you connected to others? Having a close network of colleagues who we can speak to about work challenges and professional learning processes helps us to tease out issues before they become problems. How supported do you feel and how much support do you feel able to give? Feeling isolated at work is likely to impact on resilience in a negative way. 
3. What time are you spending thinking about what you are doing? Spend time reflecting on what you have done, and planning what you will do. This is action-based and purposeful and can be particularly effective at this time of year. Be pragmatic about what hasn't been achieved. Was it a realistic goal? If not, rethink. If it was, build it into your planning. 
4. Are you being challenged and are you taking risks? Take professional risks. Staying in some self-defined or other-defined ‘safe' boundaries won't stretch your practice or give you evidence of your ever-developing skills and expertise. 
5. Are you learning from everything you are doing? Reframe your response to the more challenging aspects of your work and your life in general. This is about recognising that every situation offers learning and development potential - even if there are also potentially damaging impacts. 

Resilience isn't about the creation of a world with no adversity. It's about being able to respond in a positive way, whether in the short, medium or long term, to the events that make up our lives both in work and outside.

Chris