Reframing resilience as a systemic issue: Meta-competencies that transform individuals and learning ecologies

Abstract

Educational systems in Australia are currently in a state of flux and disruption, with student mental health and engagement at crisis levels. Educators need help keeping students engaged and providing the skills and competencies to navigate uncertain futures. Addressing this challenge, our study examines a proposed set of meta-competencies (or systemic competencies) required for a systems reboot within our educational institutions. These meta-competencies are agency, adaptability, creativity, compassion, interbeing, self-awareness and reflexivity. This study analyses the application of these meta-competencies for transformative resilience or transilience in a secondary school setting, examining how systems awareness and self-awareness cannot be separated from the rest of the curricula. Using participatory action research methodologies and awareness-based systems change, this research demonstrates that agency, self-awareness and systems awareness can engage students in profound ways to create a new generation of systemic changemakers.