Resilience

A major part of our year will include "collecting"  words, both old and new.  We will get them from a variety of sources;  textbooks, read aloud books, novel studies, videos, websites.  We will be empowered with words, either simple or complex.  Words give us the ability to express our emotions, our opinions, and our knowledge.  We will learn meanings of new words and new uses for old words.  We will break words apart and put them back together in new ways. 

Today's word is resilience.  We heard it today from our read aloud, A Wrinkle in Time.  Resilience is very close to another word we have used often this year, perseverance.  Both words mean to keep on going.  However, resilience means the ability to recover when something bad happens or something gets in your way.  Perseverance means to keep going at a task even if it is difficult or takes a long time.  This week, all of you have taken your first math test.  Did you persevere through the test?  Did you keep your focus and work on your precision?  Or did you try hard for part of it, then give up when it got tricky or more difficult than you are used to?  When you get your test back and see how you did, will you be resilient?  Will you bounce back if you didn't do as well as you wanted?  Will you forge ahead and make a plan for success?  If you were persistent (another word that is very similar to the aforementioned words) and did well (on the whole test or most of the problems), how will you celebrate?  Will you let a letter grade tell you how to feel or will you look at the grade as just one picture of how well you understand and use the skills?  There is more to you and your success than just one test, one assignment, one moment in time.    You can be resilient.  Keep going, even if you run into some difficulty.  Make a plan.  Pay more attention.  Take time to study your materials.  Ask the teacher for help.  BELIEVE IN YOURSELF!! 

Ok, that is our lesson in resilience for the day.  I had another wonderful day with you all.  Thank you for forgiving me for my breve mistake.  Don't worry, I am resilient.  I was embarrassed but you didn't make me feel worse.  You all made me feel better!  I learned I should ask more than one source sometimes if I have questions.  I am really enjoying learning this word study program along with you.  It is really fun and I hope you will all persevere and see that it can and will be challenging.  It makes your brain think in new ways, which grows new parts of your brain. 



image of a dendrite in the brain (taken from Google images)