Musings on Resilience

Resilience: “1620s, ‘act of rebounding or springing back,’ often of immaterial things, from Latin resiliens, present participle of resilire ‘to rebound, recoil,’ from re- ‘back’ (see re-) + salire ‘to jump, leap’ (see salient (adj.)). Compare result (v.). In physical sciences, the meaning ‘elasticity, power of returning to original shape after compression, etc.’ is by 1824.” (Online Etymology Dictionary, www.etymonline.com, accessed December 20, 2023)

This notion of a power within a physical entity to return to its original shape might also be an attractive way to think about human resilience. In that regard, Nietzsche is said to have noted, “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” (During COVID, there was a darker version of this thought going around, “That which does not kill you, mutates to try again.” I like Nietzsche’s version.)

A significant part of a university’s mission is to build the future leaders of society. Many of us believe that all lives bring challenges. Further, those armed with the skills to recover from failure eventually lead more fulfilling lives. Leadership requires resilience. Certainly, future leaders need to have the power within themselves to return to their original state without lasting harm after tragic events.

The “re-“ part of resilience is thus important to the notion. The attribute requires the experience of “compression” followed by the “power” to return to original state. Without compression, there is no need for bouncing back.

All of these thoughts arose in musing about whether and how the university can build resilience in students.

The increasing sense of isolation, of anxiety and depression, that is common in post-pandemic society is not a societal strength at this historical moment. Certainly, the function of supporting students with mental health impairments seeks to build the capacity of bouncing back to an earlier state. In that sense, the goal of mental health services is to eliminate the need for them. However, while the prevalence of such impairments is larger than was evident 20 years ago, it still remains a minority of students’ experiences.

Of greater prevalence may be high-performing students who have never experienced failure prior to coming to Georgetown. Georgetown, like many selective universities, enjoys the presence of exemplary students taught by outstanding faculty. However, it produces feedback to students regarding their performance that is rather homogeneous, with grades clustering around B+ to A. Of course, there are exceptions, but it doesn’t seem that many students are receiving low grades. Therefore, grades do not tend to supply the failures from which they must bounce back.

At some universities, there are formal courses in resilience. Based on a quick perusal of accessible syllabi, such courses seem to emphasize mindfulness, self-awareness, positive thinking, self-care and similar concepts. The readings describe meditative techniques and case studies of people who have overcome challenges to their well-being.

One wonders whether reading about a resilient person builds resilience in the reader. Can the acquisition of skills of resilience be acquired removed from the personal experience of challenge/failure/crisis?

There are Georgetown colleagues who design their courses to include situations building resilience. Some design early exercises that are severe challenges to the beginning student, followed by showing the way to correct the poor performance in later exercises.

Other courses use experience-based learning with iterations of group project work, allowing the failure of initial versions to be repaired in later versions. Looking at these, it seems logical that courses that teach problem-solving skills without simple structured answers might be useful in building resilience.

I recall one course that presented students with a real-world problem to be solved. The students were assigned to groups. The syllabus had no readings. There were no lectures. There were no toy solutions discussed. The group was on its own. The students soon realized that they needed to read something about the problem, to learn about past solutions in other domains, to synthesize alternative viewpoints, etc. The attractive feature of that learning environment was the lack of structure. It forced students to create approaches. Such experiences seem to mimic some of the features of resilience, but in a safe environment, with an instructor nearby to assist in “springing back” from intermediate failures.

Courses that present conflicting perspectives on the same material might build a type of intellectual resilience. This is often most effectively arranged around active debates ongoing in a field, where the matters are not yet resolved. In co-teaching formats, one instructor can take on the role of the advocate for one perspective and the other, another. Students get engaged to “bounce back” from a critique from one side versus another. They face the adversity of a different perspective and reflect on how to counter it. Alternatively, they synthesize the other perspective into a hybrid of two differing ones.

How else can the learning we seek for our students be designed to increase their resilience to future life challenges?