Developing antifragility in every school

A composite photo-sketch that uses the metaphor of walking on a tightrope to an ascending set of stairs to illustrate the concept of developing antifragility.  The image was inspired by an image at https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/v2/D5612AQEM8MPLV30Pow/article-cover_image-shrink_720_1280/article-cover_image-shrink_720_1280/0/1681705407422?e=1742428800&v=beta&t=gAA28rIW21seAYWcscewul-P_qu5H_wRGaNpGBcMIxE

In a previous article, I explored the concept of antifragility — the ability not just to withstand challenges but to grow stronger through them.  Unlike resilience, which helps you bounce back to your original state, or robustness, which endures stress without change, antifragility thrives on disruption and adversity.

When we shift from “something” to “someone”, the stakes are even higher.  A fragile person may break under the strain of physical, emotional, or financial hardships.  A resilient person recovers and returns to their baseline.  However, antifragile people do more — they adapt, flourish, and use adversity as a springboard for growth.

In this article, I argue that fostering antifragility is not just a noble aspiration for schools — it is really the fundamental objective of every school.  Regardless of a school’s ethos, vision, mission, or demographic, preparing students to face and grow from adversity must form the heart of authentic education.  Anything less leaves students unprepared for the complex, unpredictable world they will step into after graduation.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, who first coined the term “antifragile” in 2012, wrote that “antifragility is a common property of complex systems that are designed (by evolution, and sometimes by people) to function in a world that is unpredictable”.  The human immune system is often cited as the ultimate example of antifragility, as it requires exposure to dirt, parasites, and bacteria to strengthen.

Psychologist Dan Gilbert argues that a similar dynamic is required for developing one’s psychological immune system.  Jonathan Haidt elaborates on this, describing it as “the capacity of a child to handle, process, and get past frustrations, minor accidents, teasing, exclusion, perceived injustices and normal conflicts without falling prey to hours or days of inner turmoil”.

Jonathan Haidt further describes the disastrous effect of creating a sense of entitlement in a child:

“A carton of eggs is fragile, if you bang it around it breaks. But bone is anti-fragile.  If you bang it around it gets stronger, and if you don’t bang it around it gets weaker.  Children are anti-fragile.  They have to have many, many experiences of failure, fear, and being challenged.  Then they have to figure out ways to get themselves through it.  If you deprive children of those experiences for eighteen years and then send them to college, they cannot cope.  They don’t know what to do.  The first time a romantic relationship fails or they get a low grade, they are not prepared because they have been rendered fragile by their childhoods”.

Exposure to risk-taking, experiencing setbacks, accepting losses, waiting patiently, and recognising the needs of others as important are vital to developing antifragility — and by extension, a sound educational foundation.

However, many teachers are now telling me that they are increasingly frustrated by the growing influence of “gentle parenting” on young students.  Gentle parenting, also known as “conscious parenting,” aims to cultivate compassion and emotional self-awareness.  It emphasises validating children’s emotions and addressing the root causes of their frustrations, usually avoiding punishment or negative consequences.  While invariably well-intentioned, teachers of young children in schools are finding this approach can lead to children entering school unprepared for boundaries, unable to cope with differing perspectives, and easily frustrated by consequences — in other words, fragile.

This dynamic presents a significant challenge for educators.  Developing antifragility in students becomes arduous when they have not been exposed to the foundational experiences that build it.  Compounding this issue, many school leaders report that even teachers themselves are showing reduced resilience.  They cite evidence such as increasing stress-related leave, unmet deadlines, and rising absenteeism to highlight declining resilience among educators.  

Teaching is inherently demanding and requires a high degree of resilience, if not antifragility.  To cultivate antifragility in students, teachers must model it themselves.  

The circle completes itself here: students can only grow through learning from mistakes, consequences, and challenges.  Shielding them from failure — whether by removing the consequences of poor decisions, avoiding tough conversations, or censoring opposing viewpoints — undermines their growth.  Without such experiences, students will enter adulthood ill-equipped to handle its inevitable difficulties. 

In that context, I love this extract from the speech given by the Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, John Roberts, at his son’s high school graduation ceremony in 2017:

“From time to time in the years to come, I hope you will be treated unfairly, so that you will come to know the value of justice.  I hope that you will suffer betrayal because that will teach you the importance of loyalty.  Sorry to say, but I hope you will be lonely from time to time so that you don’t take friends for granted.  I wish you bad luck, again, from time to time so that you will be conscious of the role of chance in life and understand that your success is not completely deserved and that the failure of others is not completely deserved either.  And when you lose, as you will from time to time, I hope every now and then, your opponent will gloat over your failure.  It is a way for you to understand the importance of sportsmanship.  I hope you’ll be ignored so you know the importance of listening to others, and I hope you will have just enough pain to learn compassion.  Whether I wish these things or not, they’re going to happen.  And whether you benefit from them or not will depend upon your ability to see the message in your misfortunes”. 

School boards play a critical role in bringing a school’s mission, vision, ethos, and philosophy to life.  This responsibility makes it imperative for board members to support their Principal and senior management in actively fostering a culture of antifragility within the school community.  By championing risk-taking, reframing mistakes as opportunities for growth, and encouraging students and staff to learn through the natural consequences of their actions, they create an environment where genuine learning thrives.

Whenever a student thought certain standards were beyond their reach, the great German educator Kurt Hahn would tell that student “your disability is your opportunity; there is more in you than you think”.  Hahn rightly believed that it was essential that students develop innate strength and overcome their innate defeatism in the face of challenges – in other words, they must develop antifragility.

Antifragility is the cornerstone of building resilience and adaptability through challenge.  As Nelson Mandela famously said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”  However, this “weapon” of education inevitably loses its power whenever schools settle for the ease and comfort of accepting fragility rather than embracing the transformative challenge of forming antifragility.

- Dr Stephen Codrington

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