TEACHING AND MODELING RESILIENCE



By Jennifer Johnson, B.Ed. & M.A., Co-Founder Captains & Poets

Resilience is a topic we hear a lot about these days, and we all have a general understanding of what it is – but how do we teach it to young people? We intuitively know how significant resilience is when it comes to overall well-being and success in life – but the skills that make up resilience aren’t always obvious. The good news is that resilience can be learned and can be influenced by both internal and external factors that, as teachers, we do have some control over.

Science tells us that there is some genetic predisposition to resilience AND that everyone experiences and internalizes situations and challenges differently – so our repertoire and experience of resilience is going to be slightly different for everyone. Each of us has a somewhat unique formula inside of us for being resilient and our job as teachers is to help unlock that for each of our students.

The fact is that resilience is made up of a composite of characteristics, skills, and strategies. At its core, it involves actively engaging with the world around us in a way that is meaningful to us. It is about finding ways to bounce back in healthy and positive ways. With this shift in mindset, we can entertain the idea that every challenge is also a personal growth opportunity. 

So how do we teach it? Teaching resilience from a skill-based approach can be challenging. For example, how do you teach resilience without also teaching self-compassion, problem solving, and persevering. And if you explicitly teach your students about resilience in November in a one-off lesson, will they retain those learnings in February when a challenge shows up in their lives?

HOW THE LANGUAGE OF CAPTAIN AND POET SUPPORTS RESILIENCE

At Captains & Poets we teach young people that they have everything they need inside of them to thrive. It is a language they are able to take in their back pocket on the journey through adolescence and beyond. It can be used to support a healthy sense of well-being in academic, social, personal, and athletic contexts.

The premise of the program is that there is a unique Captain and Poet inside each of us that, in partnership, enable us to be our best selves. The Captain is the part of us that goes out into the world, navigates challenges, sets goals, makes decisions and takes charge. It embodies action and courage when things get tough. The Poet is everything that stirs deep inside of us – our emotions, imagination, values, aspirations, dreams and more. It embodies the self-compassion and introspection that are key to understanding what we need in a given situation. When we hit bumps in the road, the Poet is the one that feels the emotional impact and fuels our path forward based on what is important to us. The Captain is there to help us take the action we need to solve a problem or move through a situation. 

When we reflect on our own lives, we can see when our Captain and/or Poet have been dominant or recessive, and the impact this has had on our relationships, choices, happiness – and our resilience. Consider one area of your life you are thriving in and one you are not. How are your Captain and Poet showing up differently? Which aspects are making you more or less resilient? What happens when your Poet has lost inspiration and your Captain has been persevering for too long?

RESILIENCE IS A MINDSET

Resilience is based in a mindset that doesn’t let the daily tribulations of life interfere with our Captain’s sense of direction and our Poet’s well-being. Your Poet can help you label difficult emotions and reflect on what is needed. Your Captain can help you learn from mistakes, draw from experience, problem-solve, and set goals to move you forward. 

Teaching our students that we have access to these key parts of ourselves helps them feel secure in who they are and motivates them to take positive steps forward. Surrounding students with supportive relationships at school, at home, and in the community, helps create psychologically and emotionally safe spaces for them which are key factors in fostering resilience. This then opens up opportunities for exploring and strengthening who they are at their core through skill building, making healthy decisions and getting the help we all need sometimes.

Resilience is not just about getting through something. It is a growth opportunity. What are you learning about yourself and what is important to you? How is this situation helping you to be a better version of you? There are always going to be ups and downs in life, so resilience is really about coming back to centre time and again. Use the metaphor of a bicycle with your students. Ask them what they do when they start to wobble to one side. Remind them that they have the ability to figure things out as they go and that when they fall down, they can get back on when they are ready.

WHAT ARE THE SUPERPOWERS BEHIND RESILIENCE?

Self-compassion is a key component of resilience. Acknowledging our human makeup – that we make mistakes and are impacted by things that happen to us is critical to self-care. In difficult situations, ask your child what they would do for their friend if they were feeling this way? They might say some kind words, write them a note, draw them a picture or give them a hug. Explain to them that we need to care for ourselves in the same way we care for others. Provide positive feedback on how they take care of themselves by making themselves feel better with a hug, a favourite blanket or by taking steps to solve the problem at hand. It is also important to model this yourself. 

Self-compassion is also critical to finding the strength to accept what is in front of us. Accepting the reality of what we are facing is a key component in resilience as it enables us to clearly evaluate what we are dealing with. Resilience is not about blind optimism but rather about accepting and grieving and processing – all while maintaining a positive mindset. While measured optimism can be motivating, just being hopeful makes us passive to what is in front of us which can be detrimental.  

Gratitude is another good strategy for fueling resilience in older students. The more you are grateful for, the more you have to draw on in tough times. Model this for students and when times get tough, ask them to think of something that they are thankful for. Remind them of how it makes them feel and help them to see that life is full of wonderful things and is bigger than the current moment they are experiencing.

Curiosity is a natural aptitude in students that can also fuel resilience. Ask your child questions (or have them generate a list of questions on their mind); or read a book that relates to their situation. Help them inquire into it and perhaps reframe their situation from different perspectives. Brainstorm and explore different options together and map out what they would look like. The more curious you are in your thinking the more likely you are to find new ways of looking at and dealing with challenges. 

Improvisation is another innate ability in children. Encourage yours to be creative in how they reframe situations and praise them for learning to adapt as they arise. Brainstorm how they can they look at things differently. What other options are there to consider? Try acting them out to make it fun.  

Courage is critical in fueling resilience. The more courageous you are the more able you are to take the necessary steps to move through difficult emotions and times. Remind your students it is natural to have emotions like fear and trepidation. Commend them for being brave and remind them that it is the little things that often require the most courage. Saying what needs to be said. Taking a risk. Asking for what they need. Putting themselves out there. An apology. Forgiveness. 

It is important to remember that resilience is not grit or perseverance. Being resilient is not just about enduring what is in front of us but thriving on our journey. From this perspective, we can begin to see challenges as opportunities to grow and evolve and make decisions that define who we are. 

THE ROLE OF EXPERIENCE

One of the key deficits young people have when it comes to resilience is experience. Life experience teaches us not only how to cope but it shows us the value of resilience and what is to be mined from different life events – big and small. It also gives us perspective as it reduces the impact of singular events, helps us learn what works for us and that we can do hard things. This is where parents play a critical role in coaching students to draw on their past to build their capabilities. What examples do they have of times when they have been resilient already? Whether it be falling down and scraping their knee or dealing with a significant event, we need to remind our students that they have everything they need within them to move forward one step at a time and that the tides do eventually turn.

Viktor Frankl, the author of Man’s Search for Meaning, cites his own experience in concentration camps and how it informed his view on resilience. His strategy for staying resilient was to envision himself at a future date lecturing on the impact of war. Drawing from his experiences as well as observations, his theory claims that the search for meaning in life is what enables us to endure and overcome suffering. Connecting with what is most important to us – whether that is family, making a difference, or our purpose in the world is a key contributor to resilience. We all have a vision for who we want to be and how we want the world to be. Ask your students to draw a picture or write a story about where they would like to get to and then reflect together on how they can get there.

ACTIVITY IDEAS

One fun activity you can do with students is to create a Resilience Shield or Crest that they can draw on as they gain experience. This can also be a joint project with the home environment. Have them include all of the things that help them be more resilient (e.g., people, places, things, objects, colours, memories, stories, music, etc.). What gives them comfort? What reminds them of who they are? What are they grateful for? What makes them feel brave? 



Here is another sample of an agamograph or “accordion art” that you can do with students to capture the parts of themselves on either side of the artwork that enable them to be resilient. A video can be found here.

Below is a similar example of some Play-Doh Art completed by a Grade 4 class.

As Elias says in the Captains & Poets youth documentary :  If I’m a car, my Poet is the gas. It's the fuel that drives my passions. It's the fuel that actually keeps me going internally. It’s not the thing that you see every day, but it is the thing that you constantly need. It's the thing that you constantly need to add to keep going. Students often know what they need, and our job is to help them express it and create a path forward for themselves.

STRATEGIES IN THE DAY-TO-DAY

In day-to-day life, try a simple check-in to give your students (and yourself!) the language they need to monitor how they are doing and move forward when challenges arise:

1. How is your Poet today?

• What do they need?
• What is important to them?
• What do they want to express or share?

1. How is your Captain today? 

• How can they help your Poet?
• What do they need to do help you move forward?
• What is one small step you can take?

Use words like resourceful, caring, brave and creative to acknowledge the micro behaviours that make up resilience and how they are drawing on their Captain and Poet. 

As adults, we all have work to do in integrating these strategies into our lives.  Find appropriate opportunities to do your own work on resilience alongside your students and demonstrate for them that our vulnerability can be our greatest strength. Take the opportunity to share appropriate situations and model for them your thought process, breakthroughs, mindset, how you take care of yourself, the sense of purpose and meaning you find in things, and what motivates you. 

Debrief on the day or at the end of the week about challenges you each faced and how your inner Captain and Poet came to the rescue (or could next time). How did your Captain and Poet show up on a scale of 1-10? How well did they partner? How can we learn from other people’s Captains and Poets? And how can our Poets understand the struggles of others so that our Captains can support them?



Deepening our sense of connection to self and others strengthens our sense of belonging which is key to being resilient in challenging times. Ultimately, our role as educators is to nurture the intrinsic strengths in each individual child – and to all learn from each other.