Cultivating Perseverance and Inspiring Grit
Adam Rockenbach
I help schools promote student behavioral health while minimizing the impact on teachers' and staff workloads.
Perseverance is a key ingredient in personal and academic success. This week’s newsletter explores how to foster resilience in students and educators alike. Listen to a powerful podcast featuring Jodi Bondi Norgaard, who turned 500 rejections into success with her Go! Go! Sports Dolls. Engage students with a read-aloud of The Dot, a story of creative persistence. Try a calming classroom activity designed to build emotional resilience. Finally, dive into an article exploring the balance between perseverance and well-being in education. Let's help students push forward—without pushing them to burnout.
This podcast will focus on how to inspire grit and perseverance through listening to the story of one woman’s success, who took 500 "no"s in 5 years and made them into a yes! Jodi Bondi Norgaard, creator of Go! Go! Sports Dolls, talks to us about how she advises young people; “when one door closes, another door opens but YOU have to be the one who opens it! Perseverance creates change—so keep going after your passion even when it’s difficult!"
This podcast provides:
This podcast is meant to be listened to by teachers, not shared in the context of the classroom.
Her teacher smiled. "Just make a mark and see where it takes you."
Art class is over, but Vashti is sitting glued to her chair in front of a blank piece of paper. The words of her teacher are a gentle invitation to express herself. But Vashti can’t draw - she’s no artist. To prove her point, Vashti jabs at a blank sheet of paper to make an unremarkable and angry mark. "There!" she says.
That one little dot marks the beginning of Vashti’s journey of surprise, self-discovery, and perseverance. That special moment is the core of Peter H. Reynolds’s delicate fable about the creative spirit in all of us.
Have your students follow along as they listen to the book read to them!
领英推荐
How does this develop emotional resilience?
Finding emotional resilience activities that allow us to slow down and quiet our minds is essential to building emotional resilience. We all need an outlet that gives us a break from our worries or stressors. By providing students time during class to practice activities like this, we send a compelling message: This is important, healthy, and worth our time. By modeling this for our students regularly, we are helping them develop their emotional resilience.
Nearly a decade ago, education embraced “grit” as a solution to challenges in student achievement and educator resilience as popularized in psychologist Angela Duckworth’s TED Talk. Duckworth’s research championed perseverance—working through adversity—as the path to success. Grit was especially emphasized for underserved students, suggesting that sheer determination could help them overcome systemic barriers. Struggle and failure were reframed as growth opportunities, and the message was clear: Push harder to succeed.
As education grew more focused on outcomes and accountability, grit seemed to fit seamlessly. Students were encouraged to persevere, and educators under mounting pressure were reminded to do the same. For a while, grit was the answer...
Bloomsights is an online platform built to help students connect. Click above to learn more about empowering educators with student-centered data.
Contact us at Hart Education to start using Bloomsights in your building.