“We all have battles to fight. And it’s often in those battles that we are most alive: it’s on the frontlines of our lives that we earn wisdom, create joy, forge friendships, discover happiness, find love, and do purposeful work.”
-Eric Greitens
When a school anywhere in the world is faced with challenges or forces that threaten to undermine that which the community holds most dear for its members, it will always be the bonds and shared values among those who call it home that will carry the day. As a community, Pechersk School International has been growing daily in its confidence and resilience from the moment we reopened our doors again in Kyiv. A year and half in, we are together overcoming the challenges of lost sleep, teaching in shelters, power outages and air alerts. We tend diligently to the emotional burdens and stress that weigh upon our students, staff and families, and through quiet determination, we are successfully rebuilding our school.
Resilience does not refer to an established state of being but rather speaks profoundly to an ongoing process of adapting effectively in the face of adversity, anxiety and the unknown. And as much as we are prone to speak about personal resilience in our society, and how a person can “bounce back” when confronted with challenges, today I want to place our attention more rightly upon the power of community resilience, and most importantly when that community is facing chronic stress, uncertainty, and at its most extreme, acute traumatizing events.
At times we make the assumption that resilience is an attribute we are born with, that some individuals or communities possess it while sadly others might not. I wish to affirm that the opposite is true. On the contrary, resilience speaks to actions, attitudes and behaviours that we acquire through experience and intentional responses to our world, not from traits we already have. In other words, like building muscle, developing resilience requires ongoing work and commitment, time and focus.
I would like to point out three qualities of our community that I have observed that have served us well in strengthening our resilience and providing the buttress and capacity to not only survive, but flourish as a learning community during these challenging times.
Prioritizing Relationships
Elevated stress and trauma-related experiences, especially if chronic, can lead many individuals to isolate themselves, and pull back from others and over time and repeated exposure, can frequently produce an “island effect” where community members feel alone, misunderstood or disconnected.
The key is for individuals to respond by leaning more strongly into building authentic relationships that are founded upon care, support, empathy and the pursuit of shared values and goals. There is an accountability element here, to care for oneself and for others through genuine presence and action. PSI has made it our highest priority to nourish relationships that strengthen our community, from authentic teacher connections with students and hands-on school leadership to parent activism and family engagement. We are doing the very work through our relationships that provide us with the most effective tools for responding to adversity and challenge.
Fostering Understanding
Chronic stress can manifest as an unwillingness to trust others and their intent, lead to increased impatience with compromise, and within a community breed antagonism and scepticism.
PSI is a place where hard and profound questions are raised when it comes to the enrichment and welfare of our students, and differences of opinion are as common as they are embraced. And yet, it has been through our shared mission and values, and the strength of our relationships, that we can embrace and grow stronger each day from a diversity of opinions and beliefs that do not divide us but fortify us when engaged through the lens of what bonds us together. This dynamic leads to resilience because we operate each day in the face of adversity from a place of ever-growing trust and connection, and with each voice heard, the mosaic that is our community grows richer and more adaptive.
Finding Purpose and Empowerment
Finally, one of the most insidious effects for those experiencing chronic stress or anxiety from the world around them is a growing sense of disempowerment and a lack of control over their lives. It is a natural emotional response, especially during a conflict where safety can be a question and reality itself is unpredictable on any given day.
The vital empowering response is to pursue and achieve goals that are within our power, and as a community, move with agency and determination to reach our aspirations through concrete action and tangible outcomes. We say at our school that there is so much out of our control, therefore we must work doubly hard to control those things we can. First and foremost we have ultimate agency over the type of community we choose to build. PSI, through the creation of shared goals that we are attaining together from reopening the school and building our community to improving our programmes and growing parent engagement, are all building resilience, and in shared purpose, preparing our school for those challenges that remain ahead.
Schools worldwide are experiencing an era of incredible uncertainty, perhaps unprecedented in our lifetimes. Authoritarianism is on the rise threatening the very values we espouse as learning communities, the number of regional and local conflicts is at the highest in three decades, and environmental disasters both natural and human-made are increasing. And yet, in the midst of all this, there remain our schools, dogged and determined, striving to build and nourish through our students a future generation with the talents, compassion, and yes, resilience to realize not only their own aspirations for a better world, but the aspirations of all of us.
Trae Holland is in his second year as Director of Pechersk School International (PSI) in Kyiv, Ukraine. He came to PSI having served the previous five years as Executive Director and Head of School of Safe Passage, a school and outreach organization serving the communities surrounding Guatemala City’s municipal garbage dump. With over 30 years as a teacher and leader in international education, he has also founded an international sustainability firm and led strategic planning, financial management, and organizational reform initiatives for non-profits and municipalities in the United States of America and Latin America and has taught and worked on four continents. He has dedicated his career to service through innovative education, community development, and leading programs that nurture all aspects of student learning and social advancement.
