 Hi everyone, welcome this afternoon. Good to see you here all for the last lecture. Jamie from Extra Moors will tell you more later on about what the last lecture is and why we are organizing this together. My name is Annelie Koster, I am a program manager at Studium Generale and at Studium Generale we organize events like this, debates, symposia etc. and often together with study associations. We do that here on the campus and in the city center and well you see the upcoming program behind me and for Tilburg University students it's good to know that if you visit five of our events you can apply for our certificate and that can be of interest it is not a certificate which has a credits attached to it but it's something that shows that you are you have done more than the average student that you are a curious student who wants to broaden his or her horizon things like that and you get a like a link in how do you say that thing yet what you can place on your website on your LinkedIn site. That's for the advertisement part. I hope you have a very pleasant afternoon and Jamie will give further introduction. Thank you Annelieke. Yes so we're here today for the last lecture of Alkaline van Lening and Tessa Lese and it is a very special last lecture because for Alkaline van Lening it is actually her last lecture. Last week she stepped down as dean of University College Tilburg en now Tessa will have replaced her as interim dean so yes a very exciting afternoon ahead. The last lecture format was first coined by Dr. Randy Pausch at Carnegie Mellon when he was diagnosed with terminal cancer and he asked himself what knowledge do I want to impart on the world before I go. We asked a similar question to Dr. Alkaline van Lening and Dr. Tessa Leseen namely if this was your last lecture what would you want students but also many colleagues to know what would you want to leave behind. So they answered with a very fascinating talk about resilience and students so yeah without further ado I will give the floor to Alkaline van Lening en Tessa. A warm welcome to all of you to our last lecture that we will jointly teach. Jamie has already introduced this maybe I can add that I'm an assistant professor sorry already thinking bigger of myself than I actually am. Assistant professor at University College Tilburg teaching history with expertise in the field of Roman law and and take the P and we have decided to team teach this last lecture because team teaching is very dear to us at our university college. It means that we teach a number of our courses with two professors in front of the classroom and we will both bring in our expertise for Alkaline van Social Sciences. For me it will be history and we will bring in our own viewpoints and engage in an academic and a respectful discussion. And the topic of our last lecture the title of our last lecture is when resilience falls short students at a loss. And resilience has been an important topic for me personally together with Ellen we have designed a resilience project for our students in the bachelor program liberal arts and sciences. And so resilience has been part of our teaching activities and of our research activities at the university college. So that's why we decided to teach on this particular topic. And well in the past few years we have organized quite a few things at our college relating to resilience trying to stimulate and enhance our students resilience. Ellen has taught a lot of workshops on the topics for our students and there's a course in our curriculum on happiness and resilience. And we've also organized a few editions of a failing forward event through which we would like to show our students that it is okay to fail. After these types of events we invite staff members and teachers and students and alumni to share a failure with the audience so that we can try to break the taboo on failure and encourage students to be open about failures and not to feel ashamed because after all we all fail sometimes and it's just part of the learning process and I think it is good to bring that message across to students. Now it is always difficult I have to admit en Anna knows to find speakers for this failing forward event. People willing to share a failure and I have to admit I have not yet been a speaker at any of these sessions myself. So clearly I'm not very courageous in this respect but luckily my colleague is and Alkaline was one of the speakers at the first edition of our failing forward event and maybe Alkaline you can share the story that you've told there. Yeah I told two versions of my resume so to speak and I like to share these two versions with you again. I have to tell you that during the failing forward the rector was there and I have to admit I was not too happy that he was there in the audience. I did not count him in but okay. I'll tell you my school history. At grammar school I was an absolutely top student. I skipped the whole year. I went from the first class to the third class and in the third class I was by far still the best student in the class. So I answered all phone calls. I opened the door and I made coffee and tea for teachers during my whole grammar school career and I ended with being the top student of the school. Then I did pre-university education. I never failed. I never failed one exam ever. I went to the free university in 1982. I embarked already avant la lettre on interdisciplinary studies. I got a job offer at Tilburg University prior to finishing my master's. I graduated with honor. At Tilburg University I became a coordinator in women's studies later gender studies but then it was still called women's studies. I did a PhD in Utrecht and I got the book published by a famous publisher. That is my resume you would think. But I have a second story. This was all above the surface. Or maybe I was too quick. There is more successes. I became assistant professor. I became director of a bachelor and a master. I forgot to put that down in sociology. Then I became associate professor and together with colleagues I designed a whole new program and I became the vice dean of then liberal arts and sciences. Then I became a professor of education in 2013 at the Tilburg school of humanities and I became the dean of the university college. I became full professor in 2018 and I still am professor of multidisciplinary education in particular of liberal arts and sciences. People are always very much impressed if I tell them that. Okay this was above. Then what is below this surface? Let's run my career once more. Kramer school. The quality of the school in this neighborhood was not very high. So I was the one eyed queen in the land of the blind. When I went to pre-university education the first year I almost failed because I had no idea what it was to really learn to concentrate. I never did that. Everything was shouted at us many times and I took it on. I don't know. But then I had to study and we had this school reports and it was in words. So not in grades. In Dutch my report said SOS, SOS, slecht, onvoldoende slecht, slecht, onvoldoende slecht. So there is week insufficient, week weak, insufficient week. That was my first school report. I almost had to leave that school. Then I did general secondary education half-o and only later I did what in Dutch is of the name and I was eligible for university. In those days it was not that strange but it took me quite a long time to finish my study. If you look at it now 1975 I started 1982 I was done. Ja, ja, maar het was normaal, was dit, je weet. En dan ik studeed Andragologie. Ik kon het niet veranderen, maar de studie was stoppen na ik graduatee. Het was gecanceld volledig. Dus ik vertel altijd dat iedereen wat interdisciplinarische studie deed, omdat ik niet denk dat het zo goed ziet als je Andragologie zegt. Ik begon met een non-scientific positie in Tilburg en ik had echt hard te werken om een scientifiek positie te krijgen. En dan mijn Ph.D. De boek was net in Duits, nooit geïnteresseerd in andere landen. Je zou in jouw thuis meer impressief zijn. Ik ben een assistente-professor, maar dan was de studie gecanceld. En ik had moeten werken soms waar, om mijn werk te hangen. En dus ben ik naar de sociologie-departement, want ik had moeten werken soms waar. Ja? Ja, sorry. Dan ben ik een professor van educatie. Maar wat is dat? Een professor van educatie. Nogmaals heb je dat niet gezegd. En er was een debat hier op de universiteit, en de directeur zei me, oh, ik denk dat je niet kunt werken. En ik denk ook dat je niet kunt hebben Ph.D. en dan, oké, ik heb een salarie. Dat is een groot ding. Maar dat was allemaal, je weet dat in een oud land, als je een professor van educatie bent, niemand krijgt wat je bent. Dus dan, maar dat is rather late in mijn carrière in 2018, ik ben eindelijk een volledig professor. Ik vertel het van je, want we laten altijd zien wat is op de surface, wat is boven de surface van de water. Maar er is zoveel onder de surface. En we hebben dit niet gegeven. Ik heb ook mijn publicaties gegeven, en dan later, hoeveel keer, ik heb het niet gegeven. En ik kon share reports from reviews, oh, this is not sufficient, and that happened. So I think in the end, and that is why I think it's appropriate to share this now once again, I sincerely believe and will come to that, that my successes or where I came is a product of a form of resilience, but we'll talk about it later. I think I'm done now, am I not? No, I have to go on. Oké, we have put resilience, that's already told you, high on the agenda, because we became worried about students. We experienced that students seem to have more and more problems these days, especially when COVID-19 hit us. Many students complained about feelings of loneliness, of anxiety, of not being able to cope. And the Central Bureau of Statistics did a research on mental health and well-being of the Dutch population, it's about the Dutch population, and they found out that a young generation, and that is the generation between 18 and 25, is the most unhappy group in our whole Dutch population. And what is more, they also found out that this group becomes more and more unhappy over the recent years. Also international data are in accordance with this Dutch finding that young people experience so many problems. En since we are educating this group, we feel we should talk about it, how to go about, and what is our role in assisting this group, helping this group. Now we know that young people have to grow up in a very turbulent world, and that circumstances are changing, and that there are many problems that trickle down in your personal feelings, in your personal well-being. I think resilience is very important, but what do we mean when we talk about resilience? Well, the term stems from the physical sciences, and it has to do with the capacity of objects or materials to bend without breaking, en after a certain moment of time to come back to the original condition. But resilience can also be used in relation to humans. Now the American psychological association says resilience is the process and outcome of successfully adapting or challenging life experiences, especially to mental, emotional and behavioural flexibility and adjustments to external and internal demands. Well, it is a bit fancy and fat definition, but still now we have a kind of definition. Yeah, true. I agree, it's quite a mouthful, right, the definition, and there are also different opinions or different definitions that are being mentioned in the literature, and Fletcher and Sarker have examined all these definitions. That's not very exciting, I think, but they suggest, or they come to the conclusion that there are two core concepts, two core features, key features that every definition shares when we talk about resilience. First of all, that is adversity, so you can only be resilient after a setback, after an adversity, and of course an adversity that can be a minor setback, the daily hassle that we experience, but it can also be that very traumatic, major, big, live event that go wrong. So it's a very broad concept. The second key feature that they found is positive adaptation, and we also see that in the definition of the American Association, they call it successfully adapting. But what is it? When are you positively and successfully adapting? And this is what Fletcher and Sarker say. That is when you can proceed with your life with minimal or no apparent disruptions in your daily functioning. So when we, as colleagues, we can just go to work, no matter what adversity we have been confronted with, students can go to school, we can continue with our lives with no apparent disruptions. So as long as the others don't see that we're disrupted, then it's fine, then you are resilient. And later on in our discussion, I will try to be critical for this definition, because Sarker en Fletcher say it's one thing to be resilient, but recovery is something else when you've malfunctioned and then pick yourself up again. That's not resilience, that's recovery. And I disagree with that very strict definition and that clear separation between the two. I think that also someone who's malfunctioned, but that fix him or herself up again, should be qualified as resilient. In the field of psychology, there have been several tests designed to figure out whether persons are resilient or not. And the question very often is, why is this person resilient and why is that person not. But we also know from the field of psychology that you can be resilient in one respect, in one terrain of life, and not so much in another. And this can differ per person. Also you can be resilient in a certain period of your life, but not so much in another. And matters become even more complicated because resilient does not only refer to persons, but can also refer to groups, to communities, to societies even. Now, the topic of resilience is highly relevant in our contemporary society, given the advert studies that we are confronted with today. I mentioned climate crisis, a war going on in Europe, pandemic threats just to name a few. These societal adversities trickle down in persons lives, and people feel that they weigh on them. Psychologists have discovered several coping mechanisms, positive coping mechanisms, as well as very destructive coping mechanisms that have often to do with avoidance and positive coping mechanisms are far more often to pursue something. But what if all coping mechanisms doesn't work? What if it falls short? What if you can't be resilient? In this last lecture we will focus on the individual, not so much on society or groups, but the individual who fails to be resilient, who seems unable to successfully adapt as you shoot according to the definition that we just saw. When you can't pick yourself up after adversities. This might leave your network frustrated, feeling impotent because we can't lift you up. In our day-to-day practice at the university college here in Tilburg, we come across students who set back interfere seriously with their schoolwork. As a result sometimes students disengage. Of course they ask for deadline extensions, they miss classes, sometimes they withdraw from courses, and ultimately sometimes students drop out of the program. How to go about? That is the discussion that we will have later on. What is the most appropriate response that we can offer as an academic program when students disengage because they cannot be that resilient? But first the floor to you. So we will address this question in order to address it. We will travel back in time, I think as a historian I would like to do so. And we turn perhaps a bit unexpectedly to the 1st century Roman Republic en to Marcus Julius Cicero. And the reason why we turn to Cicero is because it's a last lecture and I have a bit of a thing with Cicero. Well, I very much am very interested in that specific period in time, the Roman Republic. And Cicero, he was a statesman in that period. He was a politician, he was a consul and he was also an orator, an advocate. He had these great rhetorical skills, so he delivered political speeches and also judicial speeches and he wrote a couple of books on argumentation and rhetorical skills and also legal argumentation. And for my PhD I've looked into those rhetorical books and they really helped me have a proper understanding or a better understanding of Roman law. So that's the reason why I like Cicero so much. Now Cicero wasn't only a statesman and he wasn't only an orator and an advocate. He was also a philosopher and I'm left acquainted with his philosophical works. And he was also a father. He had two children, he had a son and we don't talk about his son. But he also had a daughter and we will talk about her. Her name is Tullia and he called her Tulliola with a nickname because we know from the sources that he was really fond of her that they had a very close relationship. And in the middle of February, 45 BC, Miss Fortune struck and hit Cicero because his daughter died. She passed away. She gave birth to his grandchild and it's from complications that she died. En what we see is that this great orator and this great statesman was completely overrun by emotions. He was devastated. He was completely at a loss. And what he did was he decided to leave Rome to drop all his public tasks and his public responsibilities. So clearly he wasn't very resilient according to the definition of lecture in Saka, but because he didn't proceed with his life. He went to live in one of his villas near the coast, West Italy. Now despite the fact that he physically withdrew from Rome, he did not completely disconnect because he had colleagues and friends sending him letters of condolence. And he responded to these letters. And it's these letters that have been preserved for us that we can still read and that we have still access to. And I really like these letters for several reasons and one of them is that they give us access, direct access to the emotions of Cistero because it's Cistero writing these letters and they give us direct access to what he is feeling in the weeks after the death of his daughter. And I would like to read a short fragment of one of the letters that he wrote on the 9th of March only a few weeks after his daughter had passed away. In this solitude I don't speak to a soul. In the morning I hide myself in a dense and wild boot and I don't come out till the evening. After you I have not a greater friend than solitude. All my conversation is with books though tears interrupted. I fight against them as much as I can but as yet I'm not equal to the struggle. Clearly Cistero was hurt. He was very emotional, open about crying and I think that's very special and peculiar in the Roman Republic because it was not very accepted at the time. And I think when we talk about emotions and emotions such as grief this is understood to be universal. No matter where you live or when you live everyone recognises the emotion of grief but the way we cope with grief and the way we deal with grief that is very culturally embedded. It depends on your context, the social context, the cultural context, the intellectual context. And the letters of Cistero also offer us a glimpse and a sense of what the Roman elite thought was appropriate when dealing with grief. And that is of course the educated elite, the intelligent Roman elite giving us a sense of what they thought this is how you should be dealing with grief. And many of these writers of these rounds of Cistero were influenced by the Stoa and the general idea that comes across when you read these letters is that there was sympathy for the one grieving acceptance that there is grief when someone dies, luckily. But they were also quite strict in a sense that you could grieve but not too long and not too excessively, right? So there was also the idea that you would have to rationalise your emotions and moderate them and master them and not to give too much oxygen also to your grief. And to try to moderate it. And I have another fragment from a letter to illustrate this expectation of dealing with grief in Roman time. And it's a letter written by Cistero himself and the exact date is not known but it was before his own daughter had died. So he was giving advice to his friend Tizius who had lost two children en he was giving advice on how Tizius could deal with his grief on what he should do and he was paying his sympathy for Tizius. But he says, by recalling to mind what has befallen others we should induce the reflection that what has happened to ourselves is nothing new. So Cistero is saying, look tragedy, loss, death, it is part of life. Implying others have survived it. By encouraging that thought so you can do it too. Now that's the message that Cistero sends across to Tizius. And again, if there never was a woman when bereft of her children so feeble in character as not sooner or later to make an end of her mourning surely we men ought to anticipate by our wisdom what the passage of days is sure to bring us en not to wait for time to provide the remedy which reason enables us to apply at this very moment. So what he is saying here is that time will eventually heal the wound even for women. Time will heal the wound. So why would we wait for time to heal the wound if we can use our reason, our ratio to do it ourselves and to search for immediate relief. That's his advice and when it becomes clear that when his own daughter passed away he was unable to put it in practice. It was harder than he had expected and it's also a bit of an overestimation probably of the power of reason and of ratio en also gives us the sense of how these Roman men thought about women as emotional to emotional beings and I'm sure that Alkeline with her expertise in gender has something to say about that. Well, you know the image of being calm, cool and collected especially for men is known across many cultures. It was not only for the Roman elite the case en of course it's a misunderstanding that displaying emotions is a form of weakness. So for many ages this has been a dominant ideal especially for boys and men and that ideal also came back in the way young boys were brought up. Even it is 100 years ago, almost 100 years ago John Watson, he published a book in 1928 it was called the psychological care of infant and child. In this book he describes how to raise a child who finally enters manhood so bulwarked, so toughened up with stable work and emotional habits that no adversity can quite overwhelm him. So this ideal of being strong even 2000 years after Cicero's letter still held. Now in spite of his Watson's gender neutral term of the guide, it was of course about boys only. Since then a lot changed the thinking about gender changed and I applaud this wholeheartedly. Because I think it is better for women and for men if we let go of ideals such as we heard. So the idea on parenting also changed especially the last 50 years on gender I'd say the last 30 years really on gender which I applaud. But also the topic of how to become resilience changed. The idea changed and I'm more hesitant about that because I think sometimes in our daily life we are confronted with the results of those changed ideas in parenting and I'll come back to that. We'd like to go back to Cicero once more for the final excerpts because Cicero who was giving his emotions free reign en who was crying and who was clearly devastated by the loss of his daughter received many letters of condolence but after a while his friends started to lose patience with him and with the fact that he was not a role that he was not taking up his public duty. And that becomes clear when we read the letter of Lucas Lycaeus which he wrote to Cicero en he wrote it not even three months after his daughter died and this is what he said I was surprised at your never having been in Rome after I had left and I'm still surprised at it if you have abandoned yourself to tears and ejection I grieve of course because you grieve and are so distressed but if you allow me to say quite frankly what I feel I cannot but blame you come on now well if I can do no good but trying to persuade you you should come back to live with us in other words resume your normal habits of life so luckily he says I feel for you I can see that you're grieving that you're distressed and I feel for you but he's also encouraging Cicero and not very patient with him urging him to come back to Rome en to take upon again his responsibilities and I think from a contemporary modern day perspective I wouldn't dare to write such a letter to any of my friends who has lost the child only after three months right so it's a little bit surprised by the tone of the letter and the audacity that Cicero's friend has to call him to task soon after his daughter has passed away quite soon we think but on the other hand it might have been also been not in the right direction that Cicero needed so what is what is appropriate behavior when you're dealing with grief and when you're lost and when you don't do your responsibilities anymore irrespective of the letters we see that Cicero does manage to pick himself up again he wrote a consolation to himself he also would in summer 45 bc wrote a philosophical treaties on the topic of grief come back to Rome et cetera et cetera but two years later 43 bc Cicero would nonetheless be killed murdered by his political rival Mark Antony so it's that story after all and I think we will use Cicero in this last lecture to reflect on the appropriateness of the response of someone like Lucas Lycais what is appropriate when someone is not being resilient is not taking on the responsibilities that they have and we will apply this idea to our students how to go about when our students are not resilient when they do not come to class when they do not complete their assignments in task in time should we be strict and try to toughen them up a bit and that is what Alguin will defend and plead for or should we be mild understanding and compassionate and that will be me taking this pleading this case okay before you start to think I'm a really cruel person I'd like to say there is an important difference between the major life adversities such as Cicero experience losing a child I mean it leaves you worthless I can't imagine that you maybe after three years but even then write such a letter so and of course students at this university not only in our college but at this university sometimes they experience major terrible adversities and we have protocols for that and we try to deal with that and I think those are in place but our differences start when the adversities are minor minor life stressors so I think academic stress fear of exams financial concerns sometimes social stress time management concerns that's the kind of problems I want to talk about in those cases the responsibility of the university is less clear and that's an IVF more discussion how to go about now my first argument is that we are confronted with concept creep and I'll tell you what this is in our daily dealing with students an important problem is that often all kinds of mental issues are not clear or even worse the mental issue itself can be very debatable in 2016 a psychology professor Nick Haslam introduced the term concept creep he argues that the meaning of psychological concepts such as trauma or mental disorder he names more but let's take trauma or mental disorder there's a kind of inflation going on so the definition of some forms of deviance has enlarged and normality has has contracted so the other side has expanded and normality has contracted and of course psychology has played a role in this Haslam says but he also said and this is important to me although conceptual changes are inevitable and often they are well motivated concept creep runs the risk of pathologizing everyday experience and encouraging a sense of virtuous but impotent victimhood that is a risk Haslam sees Haslam refused the changes in different concepts I already mentioned trauma and mental mental all kinds of mental disorders trauma he says first was something of the body only de body de skin had to be pierced to get a trauma it was a concept for surgeons then it became a mental illness but guess what that expanded first it was only when you experienced something terrible terrible that is so hard to get out of your head but now people speak of trauma easily and this has different problems it has also it holds also the problem for people who have experienced a real trauma because others go oh yeah i'm traumatized too it was terrible etc etc and that is Haslam's worry so the concept creep the British teacher and journalist Lucy Galloway stated and I quote I feel there are two issues that have got terribly tangled up there are students who are mentally ill and who need help I mentioned already that group and there are students who are having a rotten time are not coping well and who have diagnosed themselves as being unwell this kind of self diagnosis is making students more anxious and unhappy dan they already are end of quote Galloway I read the other day that the central bureau of statistics stated that they stop working with the label burnout because everybody uses it so often especially I think this is not for students but for us colleagues we use it all the time and we all almost think it's like having a cold no he has a burnout ja he had a burnout I was doing a reaccreditation of global studies in Maastricht and they had a group of 10 people 7 had a burnout and they thought this was business as usual well they were overburdened with work but the label was used far too easily I think so that is the concept creep and the self diagnosis we have concept creep self diagnosis Galloway so I think it is important to have a clear distinction first between major life adversities and minor stresses Cicero major but I talk about minor and also about the diagnosis what is going on I leave the floor to you ja Alkevin I agree that there is a difference between minor setbacks the daily life stressors that we all experience including students and those major life adversities that we have to make a distinction between the two and of course we also adjust our response to that and the way we offer support to our students if a student is stressed for an exam we will respond very differently of course than when a student has lost a parent of had lost on one year so I completely agree that we adjust our response to the degree of the adversity but I also think that the degree to which an adversity really interferes with a student's life and topples a person's life does not only depend on the severity of the adversity but it also depends on the person who is experiencing it there is a subjective component to it en I think we all know persons who swiftly adjust to the most terrible setbacks people have very resilient and there are others who barely overcome the slightest setback and we see that also in our students even minor setbacks can put our students on balance and I think we should take these students and their concerns seriously as well and I do think that even though we assess those setbacks as minor that they deserve our attention as well and I have two arguments to support so much mildness and the first one is that I think that students are facing quite challenging circumstances our research has been conducted has been done I see Annelike pointing out my microphone so well research has demonstrated that this transition from secondary school to university it is quite challenging for students right all of a sudden students have to live independently and they have to make new friends and they have to meet our high academic standards so I can imagine that that is quite challenging quite stressful and that also this exciting experience of going to university can be challenging and the literature calls our students emerging adults so they are not adolescents anymore but not yet adults either and I think some of the skills that come in really handy to manage these kinds of transitions such as self-discipline and time management and sense of perspective that students do not yet master these skills as perhaps someone who is a bit older can so they might not have the tools that they need to deal with that transition when going and coming to university and the second reason why I plead to be mild and understanding the students who struggle is because our students and we as well live in a society that is meritocratic and if you look at the concept meritocracy it comes from well atomologically it means the rule of the merit so everyone who is talented and who's intelligent has the world at their feet has all these opportunities can make it happen also at university and I think that's democratic it's fantastic but it's also terrifying right because it leaves students with a huge sense of responsibility it's at the university that it should happen that's the place where they're preparing for the future that's the place where they are preparing for a job and if we imply that we owe all our successes to ourselves that also implies that when we fail we have mainly ourselves to blame for and I think that generates stress among students and can make students vulnerable so that is why I plead to be understanding the students struggle and lack some resilience okay well I think two counter arguments maybe more I don't know I think two the first is that meritocracy has been in place for many years now it's not something of the last 10 or 20 years the the term was coined I believe in the in the 1950s if I'm correct maybe beginning 1960s but no later and I worked for over 40 years at this university and I witnessed the rising number of mental issues in students especially the last five to maybe 10 years these numbers really rose the 40, 30, 20 years ago that was not so much a problem these students were also emerging adults they also had to leave home they also had to live for themselves make new friends and adapt to the academic life and rules so something changed and you speak about one person being more resilient than another and that is a could be a psychological view on it but I like to have also a more sociological view and then you see that the whole group is changing in line with Noble and McGrath they published their piece in 2012 they said parents of previous generation and I quote taught their children to expect that life could be difficult as it had been for them for the parents they modeled stoicism and taught their children the skills and attitudes that would help them to become independent and to be able to survive end of quote to survive in a harsh world that is sometimes unfair my parents talked about putting iron in your soul we have to put a bit iron in your soul if not you will not survive later generations of parents raised their children to display self-esteem and feel good at the expense of learning to become more resilient as a result and this is from international study young people are more confident more assertive but also more narcissistic and more isolated than young people were ever before another argument oh god if we do not allow students to fail to be disappointed with themselves to receive less than genuine praise then they are deprived of the opportunity to develop frustration and I think that is important in life to become persistent and to are motivated to work harder I agree that the meritocratic society we leven is not safe and especially not for emerging adults but I also feel I deeply feel that it is important to perform under stress to perform while you are nervous maybe even anxious to be there and to perform that is let's be honest what we do we have to students tend to shy away from the very sources that make them stress and that make them anxious and they tell me no I'm afraid exams you know they make me so anxious I think do it try it maybe you fail second time maybe you fail less maybe you succeed I sincerely believe that we help students more if we are clear and strict than if we give in to all kinds of vague stories and excuses if we do that students will train the wrong skills not concentrating on working hard despite setbacks and small problems but finding excuses and presenting themselves as persons who are entitled to exceptions and I sometimes meet students and I think if you had put all the energy you put in complaints and emails and asking for exception if you had put that in to sit and learn it was not necessary so I'm so afraid that they develop the wrong skills because we are lenientism now you've made me anxious well I agree that also for young people of course it is important to practice resilience and we know that resilience is not static right it's something that can grow and that can develop and that can thrive and research has also shown that if you have been confronted with mild setbacks or not big setbacks but mild setbacks to limited extent that those people are indeed more resilient than others so what doesn't kill you in moderation does make you stronger so yes of course students should practice resilience and we shouldn't avoid disappointments or setbacks but since it is so challenging to become resilient I would say let's take our roles as part of their social support network seriously let's reach out and let's help students to become more resilient and I have to admit that it's a bit of a struggle and a question how that help and assistance should look like in practice and to Ellen and I and particularly Ellen has been teaching workshops on making students resilient and dealing with stress and students have applauded the initiative and then don't show up when the workshop is being taught so it's difficult well what do you what do you need what do students need en I'm curious to hear from students in the discussion later on what they would help what they would need and a research has been conducted in the UK in a small group of students where they've asked students what do you need to make that transition from secondary school to university more smoothly and to assist you and they have asked for more information to deal with their anxiety and uncertainty they have also asked give us teachers the academic skills so that we can meet those academic demands and finally they sat look we would like the university to adopt the culture of inspiration rather than competition so those might be starting points where we could help students become more resilient now before I rest my case I would like to make one final remark it's a more general remark that I would like to make because when we read psychological research we see that very often the goal is to make as many people as resilient as possible and that resilience focuses upon continuing to work continuing to function that's very important but that very instrumentalist approach which might be very typical for a contemporary society doesn't leave much room for helplessness or vulnerability of despair en ik begrijp dat want ik denk dat de rote resiliënt is niet linear is niet straight forward maar het bans en het kerft en ik denk dat het oké is ik denk dat het oké is om soms een paar balen te dropen particulair voor een student die nog is in de eerste jaren van het ingewikkelde oudheid dus ik ben een beetje ik wil niet te promoteren dit idee dat we moeten altijd doen altijd performeren en altijd proceden en continuen met hun leven particulair niet als het verkeerd is onze jonge studenten oké mijn final argument en dan testen we de lecture misschien heb ik het niet gezien maar ik geloof je ik kan het studenten zijn patiënt als ik alleen kan voelen ze vijten de juiste battle en ik voel me vaak dat ze de teacher of de grading systeem of de akademische demand als hun vrouw nu Nietzsche zei je moet altijd winen je campaign tegen jezelf elke dag weer en ik denk dat we allemaal doen we moeten allemaal studenten groeien en ze leven in een wereld die ze urgeert te promoteren zichzelf een verkeer dat wereldschap succes en ik geloof dat is het geval maar het is exact dat ideologie dat het betekent ze of uiteindelijk het niet encourage ze op de humiliteit en op het honeste zelfconfrontatie en ik voel honeste zelfconfrontatie is een requirement voor groeien we teachen een paar of er zijn veel teachers hier in dit dit lecteur haal we weten allemaal soms je lectuur en het was geweldig je gaat naar huis als je denkt ik ben een geweldige teacher ik wist het en en soms het was niet zo geweldig en je gaat naar huis en je voelt horrebbel en dan je moet zitten ook als een teacher en denk wat gebeurt en dan denk je ik heb niet goed gepraat genoeg het begin was oké maar dan de tweede half ik was niet gepraat en ik heb het half geweldig in de studenten behoorlijk ze niet behoorlijk wat gebeurt maar ze behoorlijk goed behoorlijk iets gaat er wrongen dat honeste zelfconfrontatie is voor mij persoonlijk zo nodig altijd worden te groeien als een teacher en te proberen en als de beste teacher zou je kunnen zijn Zeer Lichman hoort dat als mensen geloven dat ze speciaal en uniek individuels en dat ze zijn ontwikkeld voor geluk ze vinden het veel meer moeilijk om zichzelf te percieven als een kleine klein element in de communiteit van anderen die is net zo verkeerd die is net zo belangrijk zoals ze zijn nu ik voel een akademieke educatie wordt een investering een investering in jezelf een investering in je persoonlijke futuur en dat is niet studenten verkeerd het is natuurlijk onze hele society het is de manier zelfs universities adverteren hun programmen dus het is niet studenten verkeerd het is de verkeerd verkeerd maar studenten leven onder die verkeerd en omdat ze zo jong de verkeerd smaakt naar je of zoals water je je kan niet smaakt iets als je al kan je denkt oh dit is echt verschillend van een half eeuw eeuw maar omdat studenten voel dat dit studie is een investering in hun persoonlijke futur ze niet voel dat ze een dood te society dat ze hebben had dit enorm privilijks van dat soort educatie ze ook denken dat ze voor het het is verkeerd als je weet wat het kost en hoeveel teks geld gaat in te je studie het is enorm en en studenten voel dat ze een educatie hebben en en ze denken wel ik ik ik heb een stuk van het een stuk ik ik ik ik ik heb ik voor dit ik denk niet zo et cetera en dat is niet daarvoor dat is hoe we allemaal doen hoe we hoe we het uitvoeren het ik denk de individualistische ideologie dat jongepers leven in en soms ze ze ontbreekt het ze ook zullen onder deze ideen van individueelheid ze denken er is feestcompetitie tussen elkaar dus soms studenten zijn ook ervaring van de succes van andere studenten die is verkeerd ik was nooit dat ik had nooit te zijn ervaring van dat want we waren veel meer samen en we waren veel meer denken nou ik stop het van dat ik zie dat studenten zijn te zufferen maar ze zullen individueel ze doen niet protest collectief en dat is iets ik regret je doet het einde ja onze discussie continu en ik wil het invite alle jullie om te joinen onze discussie en ik heel veel of we heel veel leuk te horen van je en bedankt zijn verschillende angles ik denk dat we er een verkeerde voor onze studenten en we willen helpen ze en helpen ze over hun educatieve proces en tot het adeltuid maar het is moeilijk te vinden een goede balans tussen maken studenten individueel om ze te zijn individueel en op dezelfde tijd supporten ze en het is ook moeilijk te zien de universiteit inderdaad als een veilig structuur en op dezelfde tijd teachen studenten wat de wereld is leuk dus please voel vreemd om je uw punt op jouw opinions in in in de discussie om te kieken deze laatste lectuur de ding maar dat is like de limit van jouw expectatie en en en als je u speelt soms setback zoals als u ziet de op de hoogte is zoals een meter op de medium niveau maar dat is zoals de whole thing je speelt en u wil zien dat is een zeer is een hoge setback dus dat is zoals een van de de reden misschien waar studenten kan zien zoals ik ik de test en dat is sky is crashing dan en dat is wat makes hem so desperate maar if for example de same student has already experience something is much more terrible but then is like a failing a test was that that's nothing right so on top of that I still think that one of the reasons many young students these days that they had so many mental problems it's like the society pro like propels this image of success right so in social media on news everywhere that you see like successful people like they have already done something at such a young age and they have achieved a lot right so you compare them to yourself and it's like this constant comparison and you see yourself as someone who is inferior it's not really about entitlement of happiness it's like you have to be that where you fail in your life so I think that's like a constant stressor in a background that compels you to just compete compete compete against other people it's not really about living a life anymore it's not about enjoyment it's like a survival instinct it's become like a huge live or die situation so that's like many young students nowadays feel so stressed out and like for example I had a webinar yesterday and someone asked the lecturers like I have many like gaps in my resume so that will that influence or impact my prospect of getting a job in the future and the lecturer said yeah unfortunately that's true right so that's very honest and that's true and you know that you feel fail the prospect of you leaving idealize the version of life that society told you that you have to be is like less likely to happen so that's what makes this thing so stressful I think this part of experience or my observations are pretty much universal even to like Dutch students because I'm not Dutch student right so I have my own problems that comes from my own culture but I won't talk about that now okay okay thank you thank you very much shall I start you mentioned something that we did not mention and that is digitalisation dat is comparison on instagram what have you I don't know where you're looking at I always think why are you looking all the time at these persons you know I never understand but that is maybe because I'm old I never look at lives of other persons on the internet I don't care so much it doesn't interest me but it does interest younger persons so dat is different and it's also part I think of the reality of young persons yeah hard not to probably participative everyone does that right so it's hard to escape yeah I think so too but then you know if already the question I have gaps in my resume does this affect my future possibilities is so much inspired by a meritocratic ideal and no criticism I mean what I would look for is that students can be more critical on this idea can raise their voice against this idea and you seem to go into it and then say well we suffer from it but this is what we were told to do as if you have not a mind of your own do you understand what I'm saying yeah I understand but it's like you're raised up in this kind of environment you absorb it like it is an air or water it's just everything normal when you mention that we should just kind of protest against this kind of phenomenon so what kind of way do you suggest that we should take well if this is something you would like to do I think you would you should do this collectively and not I always think why are people you know on the internet why do they post maybe they do also post for fun terrible situations but why not be critical about it do something different why not yeah during our as part of our resilience project we have taught some lectures and did some conferences also on the concept of success and how it might be helpful to redefine success because now indeed it is very often defined in terms of who's very rich or who has this very nice position at the university or somewhere else money status but success can also be different different things and maybe it's good if only for yourself to try to think this for me this means being successful and it's doesn't necessarily have to be about money or status can also be different things uh about growing for example that's what we try to promote in the university college that students can grow and develop in the during their studies rather than have nines and tens all the time yeah i completely agree with that i think also like a really crucial part that we often forget is that when we talk about oh let's all speak together collectively bring about societal change where is it happening right we can have a demonstration right now or maybe we can have a social media movement where we really really encourage failure and resilience and how we must toughen up or whatever however when we look at these things it's not a practical solution the world is going to work the way it currently is designed to do so the way society is moving will and yes of course change is possible and you can achieve it but it will a result through changes in law societal beliefs right and the people who will be making these changes have to enter the well political force or need to actively participate in it and when will that happen it usually happens when they when we see a giant need for it right and when we notice that well mental health issues are on a rise certain let's say social media habits or cultural normalizations occur and all of us realize well this something needs to be done about it we will be able to make the change except it takes time for such realizations for legislations to pass for a society to change its beliefs and so it's not a very short term solution of oh let's talk about it and like let's work against it it is a much more longer term thing that needs to be inculcated in our everyday lives and rhetoric and then we'll eventually lead to that okay there's you want to react to that Ellen ja en wat ik mis een little bit in that story although i think most of it is true is yourself because you say it's society that needs to change its social media that needs to change it's it's legislation and it takes time and i and i agree with that but i think the change starts within yourself deciding that all these rules and all these ideas are not going to apply to yourself and that's what then hopefully leads society to change no yeah yeah i find it very hard but i always try to change myself first and then hope that others will follow and i miss have a little bit in the story that you're that you're telling although i think for most part you're right okay do you want to react to that yeah i i see you okay i'd like to push back on that a little bit um because i think that the the political economic situation that students are in now is very different compared to for example our clean when you were had your experience you know europe um was was our societies in much more social democratic you could go to university and leave university and probably get a job and buy a house and all of those things well more than more than students can now i think there's there was much more there was also more social mobility and things like that but since then neoliberal capitalism has meant that society is structured in a very different way and there is less kind of opportunity especially for certain groups in society and so i do think that it starts with the individual but i also think that our students are finding themselves in a very very difficult situation right now and an experiencing challenges that we as teachers as slightly older teachers maybe can't quite understand yeah i i agree that that especially especially the effect of neoliberalism en dat is dat is een hele verschillende lange historie is is in plaats maar je weet de de dingen die je zei dat het langzaam gaat ik heb de feministische beweging in de jaren 70's gevoel en het was bijna een probleem laten me je vertellen en we demonstreren niet één, niet twee, niet tien keer, maar honderds keer en in het eind we waren in de media, we ontdekken boeken en de legislatie veranderd en we waren met een groot, groot groep en de groep was groeien ik geloof in dat en ik leefd in, in kwartere huizen voor bijna 20 jaar omdat het niet mogelijk was om te rente laatst alleen buiten in Amsterdam ik geef om Amsterdam te leveren dus dat is mijn geluid maar ja oké maar nog steeds, je weet het was echt moeilijk en we hebben kwartere huizen en we ontdekken de municipaliteit om de huizen te buyen en om het te rente voor mensen die moeilijk waren en toen ik deze werk op de universiteit heb gevoeld heb ik de kwartere huizen geleerd omdat ik het nu voelde ik kon rente en ik zou rente dus het was niet alleen makkelijk of een heel snel win dat is niet echt maar hoewel je absoluut hoort over de effecten van de neoliberale huizen daar was er een remark over dus misschien een ander deel is dat, speciaal als we te groep samen hebben en we moeten beginnen met de groep dat ook betekent veel meer op ons dat we onze toekomst moeten bevinden en we zijn nog steeds figuren als studenten wat we moeten doen in onze leven dus het is hard te bevinden voor jezelf en hoe de wereld moet lijken als je niet een taste hebt van hoe de wereld eigenlijk is dus dat ik denk is een probleem maar een ander ding is dat we een unifiële theorie moeten hebben op hoe dit moet werken in om te pleeren en in om een beweging te hebben en ik weet niet hoe dingen moeten lijken of wat moet worden gedaan dus ik weet niet of studenten kunnen eigenlijk een verandering maken op de weg ja dus ik ga misschien een beetje weg van wat wordt gezegd zo ver en begint te zeggen dat een van mijn hero's Martin Luther King zei dat een zou moeten een extreem is voor liefd een ander van mijn hero's van Wengerbal Fulton Sheen zei dat op de pinnacle was ook de pinnacle van liefd en dan een ander van mijn hero's Mary ook zei doe zoals hij zegt en neem dit als een probleem voor mijn commenten en om in de achterkant van je hoofd te houden dus ik wil want zoveel als ik bedankt voor jouw input ik zie dat en zoveel als ik ze geïnspireerd vind ik voel me het gaat niet varen genoeg dat is waarom ik wil mention twee figuren dat ik denk dat het heel belangrijk is en het heel belangrijk is in mijn leven en speciaal wanneer het gaat om op de toekomst van Roséliëns die is Mary en Jesus en speciaal op de kruis dus in de catholische traditie we zeggen altijd de kruis is de grootste plek van zoveel op de kruis van Jesus en op de voet van de kruis was Mary maar op dezelfde tijd we zeggen dat die twee figuren de happiest waren in hun leven tijdens dat precies moment wat heel aardig is om te zeggen omdat van de mensvorm dat gaat om we zeggen ook op de kruis van Mary dat ze de grootste stilogen was van alle stilogen omdat niet alleen omdat van haar geluid op de voet van de kruis maar ook omdat ze de vorm van de kruis van God zoals iedereen heeft het dus van dat ik wil ook om Jesus te turnen wanneer hij zegt groter liefde heeft gegaan dan hij die die die in zijn leven voor zijn vrienden en dan je ziet de kruis en je ziet dat hij biedt door zijn woord dit remind me veel van wat wat je zei Alkaline over de responsibiliteit omdat we zien dit man die die de God en die die die die maakt veel proposterise klans laten we zeggen en gaat door met hem op de einde dus hij neemt al de zin dat er is in de wereld op zijn achterkant en dan hij gaat voor het op een kruis in een majestische soort van man maar ook een kruis soort van man en soms hoe dit geeft een rise naar een resurrection dus dit te mij uit dit te mij dat er dat de solution in dit moet zijn te zijn waar in lief en niet in soort van soort van band uit de solution dat dat niet niet in kampus de hele van de van de mens van het is omdat ik ik stop je hier als je laat mij ik denk wat ik kan neemt van jouw van jouw van jouw input is dat lof is een erg fundamental en belangrijk ding in lief en ik denk het is ook binnen de universiteit we je werd beregen van het maar je gevoel op het aan de eind van onze pracht wanneer je zei dat natuurlijk we willen help studenten en dat is ik denk als u niet loven studenten in de schijde van de wereld je moet niet werken aan de universiteit je moet doen iets anders als je studenten je kan niet teachen of je een horrebel teacher en het is onze discussie of natuurlijk we accedereren het een bit voor debaten te zeggen maar het stemt van we lieven deze jonge emergent adels deze jonge studenten en hoe kunnen we helpen die best het is niet eh about eh quick fee quick wins of quick fixes het is about wat is de best guidance en we had dit verschil in ideas about it maar het stemt van lief en care en ik denk dat is erg belangrijk ik denk ik ik ik ik kan discussie ja er zijn drinks dus feel free to raise de issue during drinks ik receive the few signals already that we are running over time so I would like to thank all of you for your input in the discussion thank you very much and their drinks so you can ask additional questions or make additional comments during drinks so thank you very much ah thank you very much