Psychology Today defines resilience as “that ineffable quality that allows some people to be knocked down by life and come back stronger than ever. Rather than letting failure overcome them and drain their resolve, they find a way to rise from the ashes.”
Today, as we cope with computers that won’t allow you to log on, servers that randomly delete ALL student work, and wireless that keeps cutting off, I realize that teaching and practicing resilience is vital. When our technology fails, as it will, we have to cope. As teachers, we have to be resilient. Students need to see us deal with these problems instead of falling apart. Yes, they can see us frustrated or in a moment of panic when the technology behind that lesson plan fails, but then they should be able to see us pull ourselves together and find another way. We have to remember that if we give up, that‘s the lesson they learned for the day: a problem is the end of the world and there is no recovery. We need to model resiliency instead of just expecting it of our teenage students.
This doesn’t mean avoiding technology or not taking risks. That won’t shield us from needing resiliency. Life is about responding to problems. Remember, it’s just as easy to lose, rip, tear or ruin an essay paper with a spilled milkshake. That’s why word processing was invented: copying and saving documents is far easier with a computer! But just like we make extra copies of worksheets because students lose them, we have to accept that the laptops won’t always be reliable and keep our heads with alternative or workaround when they fail.
So today I thank my teachers who growl and threaten to throw their laptops, but then turn around to help their students troubleshoot and remake their work on Google Drive. I thank the teachers who saw their colleagues having issues and used it as a learning opportunity, reminding students step-by-step how to use OneDrive and access files via LCPS Go. And I thank the teachers who accept that sometimes the dog really did eat their students’ homework, so they have to extend the deadline they swore never to move. PFHS teachers rock resiliency!
I love this post. I think resiliency is such an important characteristic in today’s world. Did you know you can have documents restored in Google Drive? I have done it successfully when student work has disappeared (possibly by leaving themselves logged on for someone else to mess with).
If anything, resiliency is going to have to be a main attribute that we need the next generation to acquire. With their predicted amount of jobs to be around 20 – 30 over their lifetime. Changing into a new workplace every few years has got to be hard for everything. Relationships, geographic, and expectations to name a few. I can only hope that they will not give up when they see so much automation (70 million jobs) take over by 2030.