How resilient are our graduate trainee teachers in Singapore?

Abstract

Resilience is the capacity to take risks and adapt even when one faces adversity or negative life conditions, such as poverty or life threatening situations. Resilient people are active and socially responsive to their environmental context. Schools struggle with teacher absentees, bun1out and high teacher turn-over. As teachers are models of values and competencies for their students, they need to be imbued with resilient traits so that they can face the challenges of tomorrow as well as be better at meeting their students' needs. As resilience is one ofthe needed traits ofthe 21st century, especially in times like the financial tsunami that we are currently facing, it is crucial to know how resilient our teachers are so that they will be good role models of resilience to their students. A resilient questionnaire was administered to 109 trainee teachers in Singapore to assess their resilience. This paper examines the resilience of our trainee teachers and identify the traits that predict their resilience with implications for enhancing resilience in the classroom.