Reflections of a Novice Teacher: Lessons on Resilience

 

Ms Melitta

 

Two years ago, I joined W F Joseph Lee Primary School as a fresh graduate. When I found out that I would be a Primary Five class teacher and English teacher, I was panic-stricken. I felt completely unprepared and ill-equipped to take on such a monumental task. What did I know about helping my students to prepare for the next two years of important assessments and decision-making that would directly affect the next several years of their lives at the least? Admittedly, not much. To make matters worse, nobody could have predicted that the public health emergencies in the next two years would pose some of the greatest challenges in modern history for teaching and learning in schools all around the world.

 

Life is, however, a funny thing. Things happen to us for reasons that are beyond our grasp in the here and now, but with just the right mix of introspection, time and space, sometimes we catch a glimpse of how the different threads that we have selected or been given fit into the tapestry of our lives that is being woven.

 

In 2019, just before I was to graduate, I visited Cambodia for two weeks as part of an experiential learning course on resilience. After learning about the concept of resilience throughout the semester and co-developing a set of lesson plans to engage primary-age students in activities that nurture their resilience, my course-mates and I set off to implement our lessons in real classrooms with real students. Resilience, typically defined as the ability to bounce back after traumatic life events, is often understood through Prince-Embury’s Three-Factor Model of Personal Resiliency (2006, 2007). As fate would have it, introverted, independent and emotionally guarded as I am, I was invited to lead the group responsible for planning lessons focused on sense of relatedness, which includes trust in others, access to support, social comfort, and tolerance of difference (Prince-Embury, 2014). Through designing my mini-curriculum and, most importantly, piloting my lessons with the students in Cambodia, I began to see how the strength of our social connections and our commitment to nurturing and building these connections prepare us to face the unexpected difficulties in our lives.

 

Halfway through Primary Five, one of the students in my class (let’s call her Emerald) unexpectedly lost her closest friend due to a sudden health issue. This would be a traumatic experience for anybody, no less a ten-year-old, but rather than withdraw and suffer privately, Emerald generously shared her grief with the classmates and teachers around her. Although we did not know Emerald’s best friend as she was from another school, the class and I cried along with Emerald as she shared a scrapbook she had made to remember her friend and read aloud a journal entry about how her friend taught her to be kind to others. Once, I accompanied Emerald as she spoke with the school’s social worker about how much she missed her friend and did not understand how she was expected to carry on as if everything were still the same. The social worker suggested that Emerald could bring an item to school that helped her feel close to her friend. The next day, when she came back to school, she was clutching several stuffed Minion sock puppets that she had made together with her friend, one of which she gifted to me to thank me for listening, caring, and supporting her.

 

Despite being just ten and going through something that was so personally difficult, Emerald taught me and her classmates how to be brave in taking the initiative to share our innermost thoughts and feelings with those around us. She helped us see the importance of recognising and appreciating what we have, and enlightened us on the true value of being part of a “community.” Emerald’s willingness to include me and her classmates in the process of grieving no doubt supported her in bouncing back and strengthened her resilience, as well as ours. These are life lessons that parents and educators can only dream of imparting, and yet, we will never cease trying our utmost to do so.

 

References

 

Prince-Embury, S. (2007, 2006). Resiliency Scales for Children and Adolescents: A Profile of Personal Strengths. San Antonio,TX: Harcourt Assessment, Inc

Prince-Embury, S. (2014). Three-factor model of personal resiliency and related interventions. In S. Prince-Embury & D. H. Saklofske (Eds.), Resilience interventions for youth in diverse populations (pp. 25–57). Springer Science + Business Media. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-0542-3_3