Beyond Gaman: Why Endurance Alone Is Not Resilience

This idea has a name in Japanese culture: gaman 我慢.

Gaman is often translated as endurance or perseverance, but it carries a deeper meaning. It is the quiet acceptance of hardship without complaint, the belief that strength comes from bearing discomfort with dignity. Growing up, I understood gaman as something admirable, even necessary. But that summer, over dinner with a close friend from high school and my wife, I started to question it. We talked about how gaman shaped our school experiences, in sports, in classrooms, in expectations to endure rather than question. And I realized something uncomfortable. Gaman is not unique to Japan. In many ways, it still lives on in how we define resilience in education today. In classrooms, this often appears as the belief that sitting through long lectures, complying quietly, or enduring boredom is itself a form of character building.

“Suffering has never been a guarantee of growth. Purpose is.” – Viktor Frankl

That lesson applies to the classroom as much as the playing field. Too often, education still clings to the idea that endurance equals growth, that if students sit long enough, grind long enough, or struggle in silence, they will come out stronger. But just as water deprivation never truly built resilience, forcing students through meaningless hardship doesn’t prepare them for life. Purposeful effort does. If purpose matters more than endurance, then classrooms must be designed around attention, agency, and intention, not passive suffering.

Three Ways I Keep Students Engaged

1. Micro-Breaks andd Active Shifts

In my 80-minute classes, I always schedule a three-minute break halfway through. Even a short reset helps students return with more focus and energy. Beyond that, I design intentional pauses, quick discussions, reflective questions, or stand-up moments, so students don’t drift into passive disengagement.

2. Short, Punchy Lectures (20–25 Minutes Max)

If a TED Talk can distill an entire career into 20 minutes and leave a lasting impression, I can teach World War II in the same span. Long monologues rarely work. Research confirms it, attention declines steadily after 15 minutes, and lapses occur every few minutes in extended lectures (Bunce et al., 2010). Of course, sometimes my Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) classes require longer explanations, but whenever possible, I aim to avoid speaking for more than 30 minutes at a time.

3. Purposeful Freedom, Not Passive Punishment

High school is not about control. It is about transition. Most students are only a few years, sometimes months, away from university or the workplace, where no one forces them to sit quietly or comply on command. If we treat resilience as obedience, we prepare them poorly for what comes next. Real resilience is the ability to take ownership of effort, to decide what matters, why it matters, and how to engage even when no one is watching. In my classroom, resilience is not measured by how long students can endure boredom or silence. It is measured by whether they can manage their attention, make choices about their learning, and stay engaged when the responsibility shifts onto them.

Outside of Education

One advantage I carry into the classroom is the two years I spent working outside of education. That time gave me perspective on what the “real world” actually values: not workers who can sit through endless meetings, but people who can produce, adapt, and work efficiently. Students need that same preparation. The world students are entering no longer rewards passive endurance. It rewards clarity, adaptability, and purposeful effort. If schools want to prepare students for that reality, resilience must be taught through intention, not enforced suffering. Resilience should be measured not by how much discomfort students can endure, but by whether their effort is connected to goals that matter beyond school.

If the world students are entering rewards focus and adaptability, why do schools still reward silence and compliance?

Changing the Definition

I want to be clear, I’m not dismissing resilience. I practice it myself, whether through ice baths, intermittent fasting, or weeks where I spend long hours grading IB Economics exams while coaching soccer until the evening. But the hardship only matters because there is a purpose behind it. The discomfort serves a goal. Without that purpose, the grind would be empty.

That is why the water analogy matters. In 2005, athletes were told dehydration would toughen them up. By 2026, coaches encourage hydration because we now understand that resilience comes from preparation and care, not damage. Education must evolve in the same way. If we are still teaching in 2026 exactly as we did in 2005 with long lectures, passive endurance, meaningless busy-work then we are not moving with the times.

The workplace has already started this shift. Nearly half of today’s workforce is Millennial or Gen Z. Younger employees increasingly expect balance, flexibility, and breaks to sustain performance, not nonstop hours for appearance’s sake (Pew Research Center, 2023). In many ways, this shift mirrors how gaman once operated in Japanese workplaces. Older generations were taught that resilience meant staying at the office until the boss left, even if the work was already done. Waiting, enduring, and being visibly present were signals of character. Today, younger workers question that logic. Clocking out at 5:30 instead of 6:00 is not a lack of resilience if the work is complete. It is a recognition that purpose, efficiency, and performance is what matters, not performative grit. The skillset has changed, and our definition of resilience needs to change with it. What older generations once viewed as “softness,” newer generations see as sustainability. The same principle should guide how we run schools. True resilience in education is not measured by how long students can endure, but by how purposefully and effectively they engage with meaningful goals.

References

Bligh, D. A. (2000). What’s the use of lectures? Jossey-Bass. Bunce,

D. M., Flens, E. A., & Neiles, K. Y. (2010). How long can students pay attention in class? Journal of Chemical Education, 87(12), 1438–1443. https://doi.org/10.1021/ed100409p

Pew Research Center. (2023, September 6). Millennial and Gen Z workers are reshaping the workplace. Pew Research Center.