By Lily Jones
As educators, we want to help students succeed. But success doesn’t often happen easily. The road to success can be filled with setbacks, so one of the most important things we can teach students is resilience. When setbacks happen, as they inevitably do, resilience helps people recover more quickly and continue working toward their goals. In the long run, resilient people are more likely to thrive because they can adapt, persevere, and learn from their experiences rather than getting overwhelmed by them.
Help your students build resilience with the approaches below.
Build a Positive Classroom Community
A strong classroom community is essential for encouraging resilience. Having discussions about resilience can help students build a growth mindset, which is the belief that your abilities can be developed over time through effort, learning, and persistence. When students feel safe, supported, and connected to their peers, they are more willing to take risks, learn from mistakes, and support one another through challenges. Building this kind of environment helps students see setbacks as shared experiences instead of personal failures.
Set Goals
Set explicit goals around resilience. You might, for example, encourage students to set a goal to ask for help when an assignment is difficult. By making goals about resilience rather than just achievement, students are encouraged to let go of perfectionism. When students have personalized goals, they’re more likely to recognize their growth and stay motivated during challenges.
Celebrate Progress
It’s helpful to celebrate when students demonstrate resilience. Celebrate progress, not perfection. Encourage students to share moments when they demonstrated resilience. Shining a light on small wins reinforces that effort and perseverance matter and helps students recognize the pride that comes with bouncing back.
Celebrating progress also helps students reframe how they see success. When students see that their perseverance is noticed and valued, they’re more likely to keep trying, even when things get tough. These celebrations don’t have to be big! Consider creating a resilience wall full of Post-Its where students can list ways in which they demonstrated resilience. Simple acknowledgments can go a long way toward reinforcing a culture that honors resilience.
Discuss Setbacks
It’s completely understandable to feel discouraged by setbacks. But the key is to discuss them, make space to process feelings about them, and then keep moving forward. As educators, we can model this by being open about our own challenges, how they affect us emotionally, and ways we work through them. Creating space for students to reflect on disappointments helps normalize struggle and builds emotional awareness. Encourage students to name what happened, how it made them feel, and ways they can take care of themselves and move forward despite the difficulties. These conversations build trust and show that setbacks are part of everyone’s journey.
Acknowledge the Barriers
Resilience is an important skill, but no amount of resilience can overcome the barriers that create extra challenges for some groups. We have to acknowledge that there are systems and structures that limit opportunities for some people. If we rely too much on teaching resilience without acknowledging these barriers, we can make students feel like they can push through challenges that are far beyond their control. Having regular discussions about the barriers that exist across systems that affect groups differently reinforces the idea that students’ struggles are not personal failures, but often the result of larger, unjust structures — and that collective action, not individual grit, is necessary for real change.
Bottom Line
Teachers play a powerful role in helping students develop resilience by creating supportive environments, modeling perseverance, and encouraging reflection. By guiding students through setbacks with empathy and honesty, educators can equip young people with the tools they need to bounce back from challenges. When we prioritize resilience in the classroom, we empower students not just to succeed academically, but also to thrive in life.