Themes for this year: perseverance and resilience
Let’s support our students in making progress relative to themselves
Perseverance and resilience (R&P) are both essential skills that empower students to navigate life's challenges. As we settle down in this school year, let’s open our minds 🧠 and hearts 🧡 to how we can support our students along their individual journeys.
Perseverance refers to the ability to persist in pursuing a goal despite facing obstacles, setbacks, or difficulties. It involves a determined effort to overcome challenges and achieve a specific objective. When students demonstrate perseverance, they show commitment, focus, and resilience in the face of adversity.
Resilience, on the other hand, is the capacity to adapt and bounce back from adversity, stress, or difficult situations. To recover from and move through failures. Resilient students demonstrate flexibility, emotional coping, and a positive outlook that allows them to navigate life's ups and downs with adaptability and strength 💪.
While perseverance is about staying focused and determined on a particular goal, resilience involves being flexible and adaptable in response to life's changing circumstances. Both qualities are super important, and help us be our best and reach our individual potential.
This continues to be a challenging time in our world for so many. With all that’s going on it seems like many of us feel tired 🥱 of demonstrating our R&P! It’s the same for our students.
But, there is nothing like the feeling of success when we DO persevere, when we ARE resilient. Success refills our cup.
I’m often asked how I choose materials. Well, my general rule is it has to be FUN 🥳 and CHALLENGING 🫤. Most good games are just that. They draw us in, but keep us there. We don’t want to stop. We want to get it right, to figure it out. So, if you need some new inspiration, here are my top 2 materials to build R&P:
Shashibo cubes! So lovely, and so, well, frustrating! Shifting into various forms, it seems the one you are trying to get is never the one that you actually make. But, it’s oh-so-hard to stop! You and your students will be convinced that success is just around the corner. Just give me one more minute! Get just one, get multiple, but check them out!
I know I have talked about it a lot, but Gravitrax is a box full of R&P. My students have spent HOURS working on their constructions, watching them FAIL in the most annoying way, and sticking with it until they succeed. There are lots of add-ons to the basic construction set. I love the trampoline (triple R&P potential!), zipline, spiral, and hammer blow - particularly popular in my groups. Video in slo-mo for extra fun!
As we settle into the school year, let’s focus on finding FUN 🥳 ways to help each of our students grow their R&P. Bit by bit, change will happen.
Have a terrific entry into Fall 🍁🍂 and take care,
