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Five Lessons from Nature About Adversity

Adversity is not fun.

It can press and stress us.

It may depress and distress us.

It can even distract and untrack us.

Yet, adversity can also be a gift that lifts us.

It can be the force that strengthens our wills and builds our skills.

It is only natural that we do what we can to avoid difficult times and extraordinary challenges. We try to anticipate and moderate the problems we face, or we may attempt to sidestep conflict altogether. However, adversity is not always something that can—or even should—be avoided.

We may face adversity when a core principle or significant value is at stake. Adversity can emerge in our efforts to defend an object of importance or in our attempts to create something meaningful and lasting. Adversity also often comes in the form of conditions we do not create or are unable to control.

As difficult as adverse conditions and challenges may be, they can also provide amazingly valuable opportunities to learn and grow. Difficulties can present circumstances that enable us to experience our best selves. In fact, adversity might be the impetus to move us from hesitancy to confidence and from moderately skilled to expert.

Interestingly, the natural world offers some excellent metaphors for how experiencing adversity can offer hidden benefits and important opportunities for us to become our best selves. With this in mind, consider the following:

The water in a mountain stream is fresh and pure because it tumbles over rocks, cascades over falls, and bounces over rapids. The same water caught in a stagnant pool is dark and stale.

Lesson: Facing challenges can keep us fresh and prevent us from becoming stale in our thinking and stagnant in our approaches.

The brightest diamonds are formed by the greatest, most sustained pressure. Absent the presence of pressure, diamonds remain clumps of carbon.

Lesson: Pressure can be the gift that allows us to shine.

The brightest lights shine on the darkest nights. On a sunny day, we can easily miss the presence of a strong light, yet the same light can be seen for miles when other sources of light have dimmed or been extinguished.

Lesson: Our work during the most challenging times can offer the greatest hope and make the biggest difference.

In the face of a storm, domestic cows try to outrun and avoid the rain and wind, whereas buffalo turn into the storm, understanding that facing what is inevitable often makes it pass more quickly.

Lesson: Facing adversity directly can often shorten its duration and diminish its impact.

Stormy seas make skilled sailors. While sailors might prefer to sail on calm waters, their best skills are developed when the waves are high and the wind is strong. In the absence of adversity, key skills remain undeveloped and untested.

Lesson: Times of adversity are valuable because they create conditions for us to learn and grow.

It is true that adversity is usually not pleasant. Still, it can be important to our growth and the difference we make. Adversity may not be our choice, but it can be our opportunity.

What Story Should Grades Tell About Learning?

Assessment and Curriculum, In Your Corner, Leadership and Change Management

January 29, 2025

What Story Should Grades Tell About Learning?

Grades play a crucial role in today’s educational world and students’ educational experience. The general perception is that grades are intended to report students’ academic performance, but many people include in grade calculations information such as participation, extra credit, and other behaviors that are not direct contributors to or reflective of learning. Most people are familiar with the traditional A-F grading system, but even cursory examination reveals multiple shortcomings in its application and ability to communicate the whole picture.

Most experts advise that we need a better way to communicate the nature, amount, and quality of student learning. We need a reporting system that tells those who depend on it the story of what they want and need to know. However, there remains considerable confusion and debate regarding what story grades should tell.

It makes little sense to try and change the current system without having considered the ways in which what we do now falls short and what features would make a new system more effective. Before making any changes, we need to gain greater clarity about what a system for reporting on learning should be able to communicate. Once we know what we need, we can decide how best to shape the system. Of course, this conversation needs to include a full range of stakeholders if we hope to achieve understanding of the need and create support for any change. Here are seven questions to start our reflection and discussion:

Should grades reflect a student’s learning journey or just their knowledge end point?
Is it fair for a student who already knows much of what we are teaching to receive a higher grade than a student who began the current unit knowing little and having few related skills but who gave maximum effort and made huge progress throughout the unit?
If you were to hire someone, would you rather understand what they know or how able and motivated they are to learn?
Should grades reflect students’ ability to apply what they have learned, or is it enough to show that they can recite, repeat, or record what they were taught?
Should grades reflect the knowledge and skills students are able to retain or just concept and skills they know at the conclusion of instruction?
In what ways does the dominant A-F grading system fall short in giving intended audiences enough information to determine what students know and can do?
What features would you include in a perfect grading system?

Around this time last year, we posted an article regarding the debate invited by the first question asked above (Debate: Should Grades Reflect What Students Learn or What They Know?), and we heard varied responses from our followers. Regardless of where you align on that topic, though, notice how that question is one of many—and more that are not listed.

If, in the end, we might conclude that no single grading system can meet all the needs we identify, we may need to create multiple reporting mechanisms. If this is where we find ourselves, what might those reporting tools look like and do? And what stories would they tell?

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