Ep 120 — Building Resilient Learners with authors Prendergast, Brueggeman, & Lee

Resilience gets thrown around like a compliment, but we’ve all seen how empty it can feel when systems stay hard and students are left to “just handle it.” We sit down with Amanda Brueggeman, Lindsay Prendergast, and Piper Lee to dig into the real science of resilience and their new book, *Habits for Resilient Learners*, a practical framework built around 10 evidence-based habits that support everything from self-awareness and self-regulation to perseverance and problem solving.

We wrestle with a big question teachers are asking right now: are learners less resilient than before, or are they carrying a different kind of load? From post-pandemic attendance realities to the overwhelm students name, we explore why resilience is not the same as surviving trauma, and why schools can accidentally condition kids to fear failure and change even when they appear high-achieving. If we only celebrate what’s easy to measure, we may miss the habits that actually help students adapt in the real world.

Then we get concrete. We talk about the difference between putting kids in groups and teaching true team collaboration, why communication needs to be explicitly taught as part of student learning communities, and how to balance technology with multimodal learning so students can think, read, and problem-solve across contexts. We also address the tricky line between scaffolding and overhelping, with strategies that build learner ownership and normalize the discomfort of “not yet.”

If you want a clear, usable way to strengthen student resilience without adding chaos to your day, press play. Subscribe, share this with a colleague, and leave a review so more educators can find the habits that make learning stick.

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Welcome And The New Book

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Welcome to the Minimalist Educator podcast, where the focus is on a less is more approach to education. Join your hosts, Christine Arnold and Tammy Musiowski, authors of The Minimalist Teacher and your school leadership edit, a minimalist approach to rethinking your school ecosystem, each week as they explore practical ways to simplify your work, sharpen your focus, and amplify what matters most so you can teach and lead with greater clarity, purpose, and joy.

SPEAKER_02 0:43

This week we're joined by Amanda, Lindsay, and Piper, talking about their new book, Habits for Resilient Learners. Their peer down pointers are around questioning, examining your mindset of what resilience is, and strategically engaging with families as you build resilience. Habits for Resilient Learners is a practical framework for building student resilience through 10 evidence-based habits from self-awareness to self-regulation to perseverance and problem solving. Its authors are Lindsay Prendergast, Piper Lee, and Amanda Bruggerman. Lindsay of the Danielson Group and founder of Ed Habits and Piper, a leadership coach with more than 25 years in education, previously co-authored Habits of Resilient Educators and Habits of Resilient Leaders. Amanda is a literacy coach and consultant with a doctorate in teacher leadership and the author of Student-Centered Mentoring.

SPEAKER_04 1:33

Hello everyone and welcome to this week's episode of the Minimalist Educator Podcast. Christine and I are really way excited today because we have three amazing ladies on with us, each of which we've had before, but now we're talking to them because they are co-authors for their late one of their latest books, Building Habits of Resilient Learners. So today we have with us Amanda, Lindsay, and Piper. Welcome, ladies. Great to be here. Thanks for having us.

SPEAKER_06 2:05

Aloha. So excited to join you guys. This has been an incredible journey working with my co-authors, Amber and Lindsay. I'm just excited, especially with back to school, really thinking about like what does it take to create resilient learners?

SPEAKER_04 2:22

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So then maybe that's our first question. Because there's the three of you, and we'll have all of your bios, you know, people have listened to them already. Let's just dig right into the work of building resilient learners. You started with the habits of resilient educators and then leaders and now learners. So in that progression, now that we're focusing on learners, this feels like a very significant scaffold. So can you talk about that? And maybe we'll start with Piper.

SPEAKER_06 3:03

Yeah, I would say it is important to think about

The Through Line Across Habits

SPEAKER_06 3:05

a through line between the three books. We really have there are things that are very similar that create resilience because it's about the science of resilience. It's not just the uh catchy phrase about resilience. Um, and so there are some through lines. Goal setting is important for educators, it's important for leaders, and it's important for students. So that develops differently for those in those different spaces and for those different roles or people. But there are some very different habits as well that take place, say, for a leader versus a learner. And so we really focused on what were those through lines that did connect across all three books and which ones are very significantly different.

SPEAKER_05 3:55

Like what does the research say around that? Yeah, thank you. Linsa or Amanda?

SPEAKER_03 4:02

I think for me, something that is exciting to come into this work with them on the learner book after them doing the educator and leaders, because of that student-centered philosophy that kind of is a through line through my work, but I think shows up even for them, not just with us focusing on learners, but also they have that student-centered like mindset of trying to help support educators and leaders too. And like how do they then best support students? And so that's something that's really been important to me and just really exciting that we've gotten to partner through on that. But I think also, too, something that I would add on is how important as a learner, not just when we talk about students, but even all of us as a learner, how some of these habits can be very important, even as adult learners and thinking about how, you know, we're preparing, you know, our students for lifelong learning. And so I think that's something that is a really important key component that maybe they didn't realize they kind of alluded to in their other books, but I think it shows up in in that way for the books too.

SPEAKER_01 5:13

So it's just exciting. Lindsay, you want to add on? So I think from the onset, Piper and I would say people would ask us what the book was about for the first book on educators, and at the risk of trying to maybe accidentally diminish the work a little bit, but we would say, you know what, ultimately it's kind of life skills. Right. But tying on to what Amanda was saying there is to mention that piece that it is something that we looked at the different roles, mainly because people kept coming to us and saying, like, well, that's great. You've focused on this group, but what about that group? And what about that group? And it's the point is that it does transcend the role or the stage in life or all of those things. But also to add on to that too is that we say a lot of work should be symmetrical when we talk about working with adults as we are with working with kids. And we don't do that very well in education in my mind. We, you know, we hammer teachers on fostering engagement in a classroom, and then we stand in front of them and talk to them like a lecture for six hours for a workshop, for example. Right. So that piece of the understanding of again, like the chapters or the habits in the four books really are cross of a through line in many ways because we talk about feedback in the teacher book. We talk about it in the leader book, we talk about it in the learner book, not from the standpoint we might come at thinking of a traditional instructional approach of how to give good feedback to kids. It is actually about how to, as a person, think about your growth in a way that you need feedback from those around you. How do you proactively seek that and how do you use it? How do you interpret it, et cetera, to apply so that you are able to navigate life essentially? So it is again that kind of symmetrical piece is a premise of a lot of

Rethinking What Resilience Means

SPEAKER_01 6:55

it.

SPEAKER_02 6:56

Fantastic. I can't wait to get my hands on it and have a read, guys. I'm wondering with the idea of resilient learners, do you feel that our learners are becoming less resilient or more resilient to perhaps they've been in the past? And why do you think that that shift might be occurring?

SPEAKER_06 7:16

I'll jump in on that. I continue to look at the research around attendance. And our attendance is really still suffering compared to pre-pandemic. I'm not sure it was really all-time high pre-pandemic either. But just from a going to school space, I think we can see that this is something we do need to lean in and support teachers and learners with and leaders, because I I wouldn't say that students are not resilient, but there is truly a science to resilience. And there is a lot of overwhelm that our students are facing. And so I think it's it is really essential that we start thinking about how do we prepare them academically and with the the life skills to kind of navigate going to school in 2026. And really, it's beyond going to school, right? Like it's about learning and growing as a human so that we can be a productive person in our communities. And so I do think it's it's really an essential time. So I don't think it's a lack of resilience or a lack of grit. I think kids in 2026 are facing things that are very different than we did when we were kids, right?

SPEAKER_05 8:44

And so really leaning into what is that science around resilience?

SPEAKER_01 8:50

And I'll add to that something that had me thinking a bit about across all the books, and then the learning that we did in those experiences again is the misunderstanding of resilience, which is oh, you've experienced trauma and survived it, therefore you're resilient, right? Not necessarily the case. We know this. And that might be a way that is presented to kids today, like you've been through so much, you must be so resilient. Not so much, not necessarily, right? If there was nothing intentional done to cr to really cultivate that. And it came up in a keynote a good friend of mine was sharing, where she was actually interviewing a panel of high school students that were all arguably very, you know, accomplished. They were selected to be on a keynote at a huge international education conference. They're not picking the, you know, kids that are barely making it to school for those things, right? So they were being celebrated and recognized as they should. But she asked them, she said, you know, for all intents and purposes, it would appear that you have been through a lot, you've nipped into multiple countries, you've navigated the pandemic, you've still come out on top, and that's great. And you would appear very resilient. But if we took you out of the environment in which you are experiencing so much success, do you think you would still be so resilient? And most of them said no. Wow. And they said no because they said we are in an environment which is conditioned to celebrate our successes for certain things. We are not very good at accepting failure. Yeah. We are not very good at handling change, right? They named it. She didn't, they didn't. And they were worried that when they were going to get out in the real world and things they were thrown at, obstacles were thrown at them, that would actually be a lot harder than they were accustomed to dealing with, right? So it goes again back to that piece of what are the conditions we are setting kids up for in schools, where success is defined in a very certain way. And it usually comes with things that we can measure easily, like rates and test scores and valedictorian chips, right? What are we promoting in those ways versus what could we be promoting the development of and the skills that are tied to again, life skills? That's to water it down a lot.

SPEAKER_04 11:03

Right. Anything you want to add, Manda?

SPEAKER_03 11:07

Yes. Uh, I mean, both Piper and Lindsay did such an amazing job of kind of responding to the thought of that resilience, what it can be viewed as, and what I think developing that resilience kind of takes. And the piece that I would add on to that, to kind of go back to that original question I think you asked, is kind of comparing learners back in the day, like even thinking of myself whenever I was, you know, young and learning, and thinking about what were some of those things or habits per se that my parents or my teachers helped me develop that has made me continue to succeed even you know, years later. And thinking about what are some of those commonalities that we can help students with, because it's not necessarily the content we're trying to teach students here. I mean, we have so much content right at our fingertips nowadays. It's more so how do we, you know, navigate, you know, as I said, that content. But then I think to add on to Lindsay's point is the challenges. Like when things get hard, what do you do? You know, you fall back on some of your experiences. And if we don't take on that ability to develop and help students and learners develop what those habits are, then whenever they do get out in the real world on their own, are they going to be able to navigate navigate those challenges? Because we have no idea what our world is going to look like in five years, in 10 years, whenever, you know, our learners are out of, you know, K-12 or whatever, you know, path they take. And I think that's an important piece for me is we're we're trying to prepare them for something we don't know is out there. So, what are those things that we can do and strategies and skills to help develop them? Which is why like I think my favorite habit is perseverance, because I think that's probably one that is gonna need to be all of us have perseverance to you know persevere when things get hard. So, you know, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:17

Yeah, you're just hitting on so many, so many nails on the head right now with things that I'm like, oh yes, I recognize this from my schooling, and like, or lack of, right? And so I'm wondering about when you're talking with educators about some of the habits to develop with learners, what are some things that they just completely overlook as things that they should be very explicit about teaching? Because a lot of times teachers are like, yeah, I do that, yeah, I do that. And maybe you do, but is it really explicit and intentional? And do students know that's what you're trying to do?

SPEAKER_03 13:59

Okay, I

Collaboration And Healthy Tech Use

SPEAKER_03 14:00

think I have one idea that first is Spark. And that is the whole idea of helping learners work together because thinking about also developing them for those lifelong skills, I know I've seen lots of research out there about one of the top pieces that is missing for some employers when they say that their employees come to them with the ability to work together. And so thinking about, we have one of the habits, it's called move from groups to team collaboration. And I think we as educators sometimes think that we've we've got these amazing group activities or we've got students primed to partner together and have good discussions, but do we really? And I'm even, you know, guilty of that thinking back to my beginning years of teaching. And so I think that's a really important habit for us to think about. How do we help them not just work in groups, but work as a team? So that's probably, you know, that's another favorite. If I I don't know, I it's hard to say I have a favorite because I think they all are favorites, but anyways.

SPEAKER_04 15:12

I think that's something I see too, and in my conversations with teachers is that differentiation between how do you move them from just working in a group, like we're occupying the same space to collaboration. It is it is hard. Is there something else that comes up for you, Piper?

SPEAKER_06 15:31

Yeah, I'm thinking that we kind of coined a term because we always talk about PLCs, professional learning communities. So when I'm thinking about this specific top topic, we we really like we were like SLCs, student learning communities. And so when we're working with professional learning communities, and we did a lot around that like norms in the education book and navigating negativity, then that same work actually needs to be done when you're thinking about building community with students. And so it's it's you know, communication things that need to be really taught to students. So many kids are sitting with the devices when they're sitting with other students, even friends sitting, you know, side by side in a restaurant, all looking at their phone, not communicating. And so a lot of states, I know Utah and Hawaii actually are doing a very limited iPhone usage and some, you know, those basic concepts of we got to talk and not have that distraction. And so there are two habits that I think about that really help us kind of I think up like back to the basics. One of them is because we can't deny that technology, there's some really great stuff there. And so being tech savvy is important, but how do we do that? And how do we use it in a wise way? So I think we have to teach our students how to do that. And then another habit that kind of goes hand in hand and in an intersection of all of this is harmonizing multimodal learning. So, you know, thinking about visual learning, audible learning, like there's kinesthetic learning, and how do we ensure that we don't lean so heavily on the technology for students? Because they're already using a lot of that, and yet balancing, we need some manipulatives back out. We need potentially some paper books back out so that kids are highlighting and sticky noting and noticing and noting different things as they read, right? So I think it's really important that I think in the past we've kind of thrown the baby out with the bathwater. So when we talked about multimodal learning, that's kind of gone to the side as we moved in technology, smart boards, and all this one-to-one technology for our students. And I'm not saying because I think there's a current trend that's like now getting really far away from the technology too. And so teaching the balance of technology is not bad, but how we use it is important. And also let's get back those manipulatives out and uh strike a balance while we're teaching that SLC student learning communities and how to communicate how to communicate.

SPEAKER_02 18:26

While we're talking about balance, you know, that idea of balancing, you know, new and old technology and and making sure that it's intentional and purposeful, as well as finding the balance between cooperation, collaboration, group work, that sort of thing. I'm wondering about those teachers who might be listening to this and go, yes, I want my students to be resilient. I really want them to be, but I need to help them, you know, they might not have the fine motor skills, so let me just cut that out for them, or they might not have the language,

Scaffolding Without Overhelping

SPEAKER_02 18:55

so let me just write the sentence for them, or you know, that sort of thing. The the teachers who are wanting to help and wanting to scaffold, but maybe aren't quite sure where that line is. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_01 19:09

I will say that I don't know that this goes as deeply necessarily into the book, but there are pieces in there that touch on this. And I think about the, you know, the the emphasis within the chapters on the understanding of knowing and valuing your students. And that stems from the idea of when we understand our students' needs, we know where they are, we can balance that piece of saying this is going to be a scaffold. You use the word scaffold, which I love, for example, right? Of being able to assist at the right just-in-time moment, right? But that said, what you're also bringing up is actually a real driving reason this book we thought was so necessary is because of the propensity for educators who, by their very nature, may be coming into this field with a very helping-oriented personality. We talk a lot about this actually in the first book, but that in martyr syndrome type behaviors that we might see demonstrated in school settings and that, you know, particularly in schools with, you know, communities that are already situated in a struggling scenario. So leveraging each of the different habits in different ways has the opportunity to kind of say, hey, these are strategies I can employ that are going to be needed to be engaged in by the child, by the learner, not by me doing it for them. That's a kind of a theme, I guess you could see, across the book, equipping them with skills as opposed to doing what I would otherwise consider the, you know, the equivalent of like the self-care approach to resilience in adults would be the the more of the self-care oriented side to kids is we're going to just take care of them more. No, they're going to face tough things, and you need to give them the skills or help them develop the skills that they can use to navigate those when you're not in the room, where you're not around.

SPEAKER_03 21:01

And I would add on that, because we do briefly talk about scaffolding in the perseverance chapter as well, and how it's there's teacher actions and there's learner actions. And to your point, we do have to teach them what those can look and sound like, but then also knowing when as a learner to start pulling away and learning how to manage their own scaffolds and how do we help them take ownership of that learning? I think a little bit. You know, it's probably one of those, one of those areas that I wish we could go deeper in, but at the same time, you know, I feel like there's so many things that we could probably go deeper in throughout. But I do think we we give it a touch in the sense of helping support that idea of a teacher reflecting on over and under scaffolding and finding kind of that right, you know. I kind of like to think of it as like the Goldilocks. you know, the perfect, you know, moment that is there, the Goldilocks goal or something like that. But definitely, I think, like to Lindsay's point, we have to teach them how. So it could be something along those lines of both as cognitively, like how do I do this, or procedurally, how do I do this? And almost kind of setting up some of those options and giving students choice in that and how they're wanting to navigate their own scaffolds so that they can move forward.

SPEAKER_06 22:31

One of the things that we we actually have in the goal setting is a rubric for students to give each other feedback. So I think really helping build that space where we aren't we aren't all perfect at things. We're uh learning and that is where grit really sits is when it's okay to sit through and like it's hard. But even helping students like start to think like I can do hard things. I don't have to just run to the teacher to get that support. And that's a through line really through all the books of like we gotta let people rumble a little bit and figure things out and let our students sit in that uncomfortable space of I'm learning and I may not know this yet. But not having just the teacher be the person giving feedback, but also students being able to like have a specific goal but then they can have a rubric that how am I doing on this and also how can I get support from other students.

SPEAKER_04 23:36

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much, ladies.

Quick Tips Plus Resources

SPEAKER_04 23:40

We could obviously keep talking about this for hours, but we like to keep our episodes within that kind of commuter time hopefully so people can listen to it. But do can we ask for each of you to just give one of those little pointers a quick tip for teachers to think about when they're trying to develop resilience with their learners and we'll start with Amanda.

SPEAKER_03 24:04

This one's a hard one because I feel like there's so many good nuggets throughout that I love. Yeah. But I think something we haven't touched on yet that I think would be a really helpful piece is developing that culture of questioning in the classrooms and within I think it's something we do throughout the several of the habits is talk about questions that can be asked of students, but we really hone in on it in the habit of vulnerability about really supporting students with not only the teachers asking questions of them and them answering, but also how to help students learn that vulnerability of asking questions when they don't know something or when they need support or also to just that questioning around content having discourse. And so thinking about that as a tip, I would say how do you set up your norms and expectations in your classroom to support questioning and that students feel vulnerable to ask and answer questions. Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

Thank you. And I will say mine isn't necessarily a practical tip for the classroom for tomorrow. On the contrary it's more of a mindset request or suggestion is to suspend your existing belief about resilience and stay open to the prospect or the idea of being otherwise a learner in that space because right now what we've seen a lot of is the backpull on the concept of resilience because people think it's just one more thing that they're supposed to do to whitewash out all the problems that actually exist. I actually talked to a school not too long ago that said that they're the head of school said they are not allowed to use the word resilience anymore. What? I was like not kidding but we've seen it in education or the educator space too of that people on the contrary are just saying like oh it's so great you're so resilient. Here's a keychain you've heard you've probably heard me say this millions of times before but it's kind of our mantra of like they tag everything as being resilient when in reality like the like the scenario is really quite awful and being more resilient just gets pushed on people again as a way to say like you're gonna be fine but they don't do anything about actually dealing with the situation. So people are now averse to the concept of resilience as a result of that. So yeah. Interesting thank you stay open to yeah there is a lot of science actually a lot of positive psychology as our friend Felix would say related to this. Thank you.

SPEAKER_06 26:45

I would say that lean in the book has a lot at the end of each habit we invite the parents and the families to also be a part of whatever habit or goal and so there's some reflective questions that we provide and that's strategic because as educators we should remember that we are not doing this alone that our students have families and hopefully those are support networks for our students and so make sure to build relationships not just with the students in your class but with the communities that you're working in as well. And so there's a lot of support in each of the habits to do that.

SPEAKER_04 27:34

Awesome.

SPEAKER_02 27:35

Thank you all so much for your time and wisdom people just need to grab the whole all four books because you your school's book is out as well and so yeah just all the good all the good nuggets all the great wisdom thank you so much ladies thanks for having us if you enjoyed listening to Piper Lindsay and Amanda in this episode go back to our previous episodes with them in 46 and 83. If you're interested in finding out more about growing resilient students check out episode 101 with Josephine Hunt. And for even more about social emotional learning don't miss episode 71 with Chris Delay. This episode is sponsored by Plan Z Education Services supporting educators with forward thinking professional learning that puts both student impact and teacher wellness at the center. Driven by a vision to teach less, impact more, they help educators find purpose, prioritize what matters, and simplify their practice. Learn more at planzeducation.com.

SPEAKER_00 28:43

Thank you for listening to the Minimalist Educator podcast. Join Christine and Tammy and guests again next time for more conversations about how to simplify and clarify the responsibilities and tasks in your role. If today's episode helped you rethink, reimagine, reduce or realign something in your practice, share it in a comment or with a colleague for resources and updates visit planzeducation.com and subscribe to receive weekly emails. Until next time, keep it simple and stay intentional