Clinical child psychologist Kantiana Taslim defined resilience as the determination and grit to always apply one’s knowledge, curiosity and resourcefulness to be able to bounce back from life’s setbacks, failures and disappointments. Resilience also helps individuals discover new pathways, alternatives and solutions when they find themselves in challenging situations.

Thankfully, resilience is a natural human trait; you just need to cultivate and strengthen it using certain techniques.

“Children can actually teach us a great deal about resilience by the time they are still toddlers, when they learn to sit down, when they learn to crawl, when they learn to walk. These skills look very simple but are essentially important – the ability to stand back up again after you’ve fallen down,” Kantiana told The Jakarta Post on Oct. 22.

If you are finding yourself falling under the spell of despair, listen to this: human beings have been using their resilience not just to survive but also to thrive during difficult times. 

“If you think about the amazing Islamic Golden Age (from the eighth to the 14^th century AD), a pivotal time in human history with doctors, scientists, poets, developing medicine, mathematics, astronomy and more – these require adaptability. So I don’t like calling it a 21^st century life skill,” said Sal Gordon, the head of teaching and learning and the principal of the Green School in Bali.

Adaptability in humans, however, can only be achieved through collaboration, communication, critical and creative thinking skills, according to Gordon.

Further, he said, online learning during the pandemic did not mean that students should sit in front of their computers all day long mindlessly memorizing information.

“For instance, you can use project-based, hands-on learning to teach mathematics. You can plan learning activities in the Indomaret [minimarket] to solve real-life problems, for instance, asking students to imagine what to do when they don’t have enough change,” Gordon said.

You can also ask children to imagine if their parents’ motorcycles have a flat tire and have to fix it on the road to calculate how much money you have to take with you to anticipate these things, according to Gordon.

Kantiana said parents could also teach resilience at home by, for instance, teaching students how to sew a torn shirt instead of buying a new one.

Then, ask children to discuss their experience in a group setting, say using Zoom, to stimulate insight among students.

“Ask students questions about their learning process: what did you learn, what do you find difficult, how did you overcome any challenges, what did you know before that you used to learn new things, what did you learn that you can apply in the future? Teach students to be self-aware,” Gordon said.

Sense of failure

Kantiana advised teachers to help students address the difficult and sometimes painful emotions, such as a sense of failure, that they might experience when they could not master certain life or thinking skills or failed to live up to certain expectations about their learning progress.

“Ask them to tell you how they feel, then ask them what you can do to make them feel better. Then, after they’ve addressed their painful emotions, you can tell them that there’s nobody in this life who hasn’t experience failure, but that doesn’t mean that your world is doomed. You can always learn from your mistakes and try again,” said Kantiana, circling back to Gordon’s idea of learning from past mistakes to solve present and future problems.

Kantiana said that when teachers created a safe space for students to exchange stories about their insecurities and failures in a Zoom or group WhatsApp call, teachers could also help children feel less lonely in their sense of failure. This social context could also help students build a sense of solidarity with their peers and even teachers, knowing that everyone goes through painful failures and setbacks.

Further, Gordon advised, these social activities should not be limited to academic matters alone, otherwise teachers and students would turn into robots. Fun, relaxed and informal virtual activities involving teachers, students and parents – even involving the principal if need be – were essential to build trust and communication in a collective effort to bolster students’ resilience.

For instance, the Jakarta Intercultural School (JIS) continues to host its back-to-school night, meet-the-teacher events and parent coffee mornings with the help of various technology platforms, such as Instagram live, amid the social restrictions of COVID-19. The JIS team said it was committed to offering strong support during tough times.

Just as it takes a village to raise a child, it also takes a village to bolster a student’s resilience during this time.

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