Resilience in Trying Times
Earlier this year, I tried to explain to a younger Browning student what it was like to listen to the radio and hear your favorite popular song, unbidden, come over the airwaves. As I described the jolt of unexpected excitement such an experience created, the boy nodded politely, but I could tell that he thought I had arrived from Mars. And why not? In an age of YouTube, Spotify, and Amazon, who would be foolish enough to wait by the radio on the off chance that you might hear the song you wanted?
To be clear, I like curated playlists and streaming services as much as the next person, and I don’t want to be the old man on the porch screeching about kids these days with their newfangled gizmos. Yet I also know that the ability to forbear and to delay the need for gratification can be a really helpful life skill. If our world has shown us anything anew during this tragic period of pandemic, it’s that our desires and even our needs cannot always be satisfied as immediately and directly as we would hope. And this is one of the reasons I think activities like the Browning chess program are so important.
Our boys do fine work around the chessboard, and I am proud that our competitive players give excellent showings at city, state, and national competitions. What interests me even more than their victories, however, are the skills and values that they develop through the game, and which are emphasized to competitive and recreational players alike by our tremendous coach and Browning institution, John Kennedy. (Like so many skilled teachers, John has found ways to teach over Zoom, and has thus shown that The Queen’s Gambit is not the only good chess to be found on screen.) Chess obviously encourages cognitive skills such as logical reasoning, pattern recognition, and strategic decision-making. But it’s not just terrific mental exercise—it also provides tutelage in patience, taking turns, setting incremental goals, emotional calibration, and fellowship. And while chess can and should be fun, its benefits are not quickly realized; indeed, they accumulate over time, as practical skills are perfected and psychological dispositions are honed. It is a game that both develops and rewards resilience.
In popular parlance, resilience—“grytte,” in these parts—is sometimes understood simply as the will to work harder or bear a greater burden, but that’s not quite the whole story. Certainly, a strong work ethic is a fine thing, but resilience is something more complex. It also requires the capacity to see mistakes and setbacks as learning opportunities, facility in identifying problems and finding solutions, and a sense of purpose that gives meaning to the stress being endured. We rarely develop resilience alone, but instead most often come to it through shared enterprises and apprenticeships, things like learning musical instruments, collaborating on social entrepreneurship projects, working through lab activities, practicing athletic skills—and, yes, playing chess.
So while it is good that Browning exists to help boys become strong musicians, citizen-leaders, scientists, and athletes, it just as surely exists to help boys nurture a disposition that finds meaning in the times when gratification must be delayed, when coping mechanisms are needed, and when paths forward are not entirely clear. These are our times, of course, as we hope for vaccines, observe constraints on our mobility, and wait out this period of extended uncertainty. But though our activities may be necessarily and temporarily circumscribed, the goals of those activities are not, for we remain dedicated to finding multiple means that allow our boys to develop the resilience they need in this time of pandemic, and the resilience that will serve them and others well in the world to come.
