By Jonathan B. Wight

Follow-up to the previous post:

Joshua Waitzkin, pondering his successes in chess and the martial arts, started The Art of Learning Project, with a related website. It tries to help identify learning practices that contribute to lifelong success.

One important part of this, as all parents know, is resilience.  How readily can students and children carry on after confronting failure, humiliation, or other trauma? 

There are some interesting ideas for developing resilience in our students.  One key way is by emphasizing process over outcomes (or results). This again is somewhat of a deflection away from the traditional Western economic approach, embracing aspects of Buddhist and other Eastern ethical orientations, as well, perhaps, of Kantian ethics.

Before hanging up on this idea, listen to Josh’s short explanation of how to use language to shape expectations about the learning process and build resilience in your students.