ABSTRACT
This chapter describes resiliency: the ability to recover from frustration or failure. This is one of the most desirable traits in the social and emotional learning (SEL) pantheon. The critical first step in achieving resiliency is the ability to calm the mind when tempted to panic. There's a lot of truth to the narrative that children in the past were more resilient, but let's not be too nostalgic for the past. A lot of what teachers take to be the toughness of the past was really just callousness. There was a greater tendency in years gone by to wall off emotions, to put on a thick skin—for some men to be stone-like and uncommunicative and for some women to be brittle, brassy and untouchable. The people teachers admire are not hard; they are ardent. They have a fervent commitment to some cause, some ideal or some relationship. Timelines are frequently used to visually represent periods of history.
