By Emeritus Professor Nan Bahr
Many people think that resilience, the ability to bounce back when things go wrong, is a natural trait… that people either have the strength of will to survive adversity, or they didn’t. However, since the beginning of this century research has shown us that resilience is learned {e.g., Niiya et al, 2004}. There are two dominant perspectives on how people learn to be resilient; sink or swim, or explicit and experiential teaching.
Sink or swim?
The sink or swim approach is based on the idea that resilience is developed with constant goading and encouragement to soldier through contrived/real challenges. The fundamental belief underpinning this view is that survival is the best teacher for creating a sense of resilience in people. There have been many successful educational programs built on this principle; the Duke of Edinburgh award program (Ogilvie, 2000), and Timbertop (McDonough et al, 2014) are two elite examples. For these programs, young people have been sent out on expeditions into the wild with limited resources with the explicit goal of crafting them as survivors. In these contexts, without careful oversight, people either sink or swim. The impression is that the simulated adversity provokes their instincts to survive and helps them to see themselves as capable and resilient people. But the success of these programs is not the sink or swim characteristic. Their success comes from the presence of a supportive learning context.
The supportive learning context is designed to develop the types of capabilities and mindsets that frame a person as resilient. The core attributes of resilient people are that they take a problem-solving approach to adversity. They work to take control of the situation and themselves and they do this by actively seeking information, planning their response, envisioning the way forward, and monitoring their progress toward their goal. These steps can be taught.
A context for resilience development
We can provide students with a skill set to draw upon when things go wrong. Students can be taught to deconstruct the components of any problem that they face, and then they can be shown multiple paths for garnering relevant information and support to plan their actions and control their response to the situation. That is, they can be taught to be resilient. However, the effectiveness of this approach relies upon the establishment of a conducive context for learning. The best contexts for learning to be resilient:
· Are emotionally safe. That is that the student is supported and guided with the help of a trusted mentor.
· Provide authentic simulated experiences to practice response strategies
· Demonstrate a suite of potential actions and solutions to problems with an explanation on how they work
· Introduce students to information sources to enable self-seeking
· Provide mechanisms for monitoring success and goal setting
· Promote a growth mindset for students whereby they understand themselves as learners of a skill set for resilience. (Bahr, 2005)
Martial arts and resilience
Martial arts training hits the mark for each of these. The idea of martial arts training is to equip people with the skills and attributes to manage a confrontational physical attack. Martial arts training provides opportunities for testing responses, learning set actions to counter opposition, connecting with information, and demonstrating effective actions. The syllabus promotes a growth mindset and provides a goal-setting sequence for confidence building. Physical confrontation is perhaps one of the most challenging for a person’s resilience. Through martial arts training, we can help people to become more self-reliant with a long-term impact on their identity as resilient.
References
Bahr, N. (2005, May). What do young people really need? Resilience. In 4th International Conference of the Middle Years of Schooling Association: Riding the Wave of Success in the Middle Years.
McDonough, A., DeCoste, C., Flynn, N., & Biette, C. (2014). The Role of Integrated Outdoor Education in the Production of Elites: A Case Study on the Timbertop Program at Geelong Grammar School.
Niiya, Y., Crocker, J., & Bartmess, E. N. (2004). From vulnerability to resilience: Learning orientations buffer contingent self-esteem from failure. Psychological Science, 15(12), 801-805.
Ogilvie, K. (2000). Duke of Edinburgh Award Expeditions:" Fings Ain't Wot They Used To Be!". Horizons.
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