Building Resilience in the Classroom: A Teacher’s Guide to Grit

Grit—the perseverance and passion to achieve long-term goals—is a critical skill that helps students succeed, both in school and in life. But if you’ve been teaching for a while, you may have noticed that students today seem to give up more easily when things get tough. Building resilience in the classroom might be the ultimate teacher flex.

Recently, my students were working on a challenging project. They had to create scale model of geologic history by converting an existing model to a custom size. The moment students hit a roadblock— they got frustrated without a “correct” answer or they mistook billions for millions of years and had to start over again—they wanted to quit. Instead of puzzling through their challenges, students asked me for answers and, when it was clear they weren’t getting answers from me, they just quit. It became clear that many students don’t believe they are capable of solving complicated problems, and, instead of pushing through, they opt for an easier path. Moments like these highlight why teaching grit matters so much. Middle school is full of challenges, and by helping students develop grit, we can set them up to tackle obstacles with resilience and confidence.

Students don’t get that sense of accomplishment when they don’t accomplish anything. Grit is more than just a classroom skill—it’s a life skill that helps students achieve success well beyond their school years. Whether it’s pursuing a dream career, mastering a new skill, or navigating personal challenges, grit is what keeps people going when the path gets tough. It teaches perseverance, the ability to stay focused on long-term goals despite setbacks, and resilience, the strength to bounce back after failure. By helping students develop grit now, we’re equipping them with the mindset and habits they’ll need to overcome obstacles and thrive in the real world. But how do middle school teachers help students develop grit?

Practical Strategies for Teachers

If you’re interested in building resilience in the classroom, these strategies may help you.

• Model Grit in Your Own Behavior – One way that teachers can help students develop their own grit is to model it in ourselves. Share your struggles and how you overcome them. Talk about times you faced challenges, such as struggling to learn a skill or manage a difficult situation, and how you worked through them. If something doesn’t go as planned in the classroom (e.g., technology issues or an activity not working as expected), demonstrate calm problem-solving and a “let’s figure it out” attitude.
• Embrace Mistakes as Learning Opportunities – When you point out a student’s mistake, focus on how to use the mistake to improve rather than focusing on how the mistake makes them not quite as good as they should be. Talk openly about your own mistakes and how you’re using them to improve. This normalizes failure as part of the process.
• Celebrate persistence in your classroom culture. Some teachers use the “ask three before me” method of classroom management, and it’s a great way to remind students that they have the power within them to solve their own problems. Identify and praise times you catch students persisting, whether it’s something simple like missing a pencil or something more rigorous like completing an assignment.
• Set High Expectations and Provide Support. One of the highest compliments I’ve ever received was from a student who, after he graduated, came back and told me how much he appreciated the high bar that I had set for him. “You didn’t just make science difficult,” he told me. “You gave us the tools and support to help us learn it.”
• Teach Growth Mindset. Use language that reinforces effort over talent. “Nice try” is better than “Not exactly what I was looking for.” Introduce activities to help students reframe setbacks as learning opportunities. “How are you going to try differently next time?”
• Project based learning may offer some support for students to practice grit. By assigning tasks that require problem solving and long term commitment, students practice using the muscles necessary for sustained effort.
• Challenge-Based Tasks such as puzzles, brainteasers, or STEM challenges where the answer isn’t immediately obvious, encouraging persistence and creativity. Try escape rooms for students to practice content and well as persistence skills.
• Collaborative Group Work involving group tasks where students must rely on teamwork to overcome challenges helps students to build both social and academic resilience.

By building resilience in the classroom, middle school science teachers are helping their students become more functional adults.