There are those children that can cope with whatever you throw at them. They've known some conflict in the home, have played some team sport, know empathy and are generally well rounded kids. When faced with a situation where they might fail, they're willing to give it a go. They have a modicum of ability and do ok.
There are a growing group that know they lack the ability to reach the Year Level achievement standard and can't understand the Year level syllabus content. They cry, run, distrupt others, are scared, get angry and a host of other emotions that seem well outside what one would expect from a good student. These children can be labeled without resilience and disruptive. They face 12 years of behaviour management, feeling like failures and may suffer a range of mental health issues.
I'm not sure resilience is the problem - it's a symptom of a system that tries to get kids to fit a model, rather than the social requirement of schools fitting the needs of the student. As legislation continues to increase the scope of schools, schools are buckling under the financial strain it causes to provide this level of service.
In today's enlightened world we don't just go, "toughen up princess" without looking a little deeper. Why are students acting this way and how can we help them reach a point where they can continue learning?
It's up to us as educators to gain trust of the student and find a way to help them.
How do we walk the fine line of childhood reticence to do work that is not fun and where students are at risk from emotional breakdown? We're not Psychologists, Social Workers, Doctors, Nurses, Psychiatrists, their parents - yet as teachers we often have to interpret vague instructions by all of these , teach for six hours a day and balance the best advice available of how to assist a child learn, often with a group of similar other students requiring similar attention in the class.
The basic answer is that it is hard and is part of the experience teachers are now expected to have. The ability to differentiate pedagogy and content for students is a requirement of teaching and not something we can just say - "I don't do that". It's defined into the job via the AITSL standards and legislation.
It's impossible to get Professional Development to satisfy all cases faced with (Autism cases in particular are individual and we just have to examine each case as we go and do our best). It's not an limitless budget, compromises need to be made.
The next challenge in education isn't meeting the needs of high performing students, it is working with the students that feel like they don't belong and providing them with meaningful pathways to employment. This is a complex question that has been made more difficult with Covid and automation shutting down service industries that would normally use manual labour. It's an issue that needs to be addressed.
