Students meet all sorts of things that feel hard for them. It might be homework, an assessment, or a difficult maths concept. Other days it’s a friendship issue, a long day, a painful conversation, or even just getting out of bed and being ready for school on time. Hard things are part of growing up. As Year 7 Coordinator, I talk to students often about the things that are hard for them and how to grow in the middle of the hard times.

The Japanese concept of Ganbaru is one way of helping students to understand how to deal with hard things. It is often translated as “standing firm despite difficulties”, not unlike Angela Duckworth’s concept of Grit. But Ganbaru goes a little further: it’s also about just starting something and chipping away at it, even if the task feels difficult or uncomfortable. It’s about asking what I can do next to keep moving in the right direction. Here are some other Japanese concepts that can help students understand how to practise Ganbaru, or Grit, in their school life:

Seiri: Creating order.
A messy desk, a flat laptop, missing notes, lunch still sitting there from a day ago, and 27 open tabs can make a hard task feel even harder. A clear, ordered space at school and at home does not magically complete the homework or solve the assignment, but it does reduce the mental noise. Sometimes the first step is not doing the task. Seiri is preparing to make the task easier to do.

Ikigai: Having a reason to get up and try.
One of our Year 7 students’ favourite questions is “Why do I need this?” Not having a reason to try a hard thing is the quickest way to not try at all. For students, the reason may be as simple as “I want tomorrow to feel easier,” “I want to improve from last time,” or “I want to prove to myself that I can begin this or do this.” Ikigai is being aware of why you should start.

Kaizen: The one-minute rule.
Kaizen is starting so small that your brain cannot resist. One maths question. One sentence. One minute of reading and then stopping if they want. Students often wait until they feel motivated before they begin, but motivation often arrives after action, not before it. A small step is still a step in the right direction, and they often find the next step happens naturally.

Wabi-sabi: Start imperfectly.
Students do not need the perfect frame of mind, the perfect starting sentence, the perfect playlist, or the perfect amount of time before they start. Perfect conditions are rare. Wabi-sabi is about starting with what they have, where they are, with what they know, and just doing the next useful thing.

Kintsugi: The art of repairing broken pottery.
While this might seem an odd concept for students, it does have something valuable to teach them. In Kintsugi pottery, the cracks are not hidden; they become a necessary part of the story. This is a wonderful picture of learning. A rough draft, a wrong answer, a messy first attempt, or a practice test full of mistakes is not failure. It’s feedback. It shows where the next bit of growth needs to happen. Kintsugi might also be beginning a conversation with someone who’s hurt you or just starting the process of getting ready for school. Kintsugi is not giving up and starting again some other time; it is intentionally mending the cracks with something even better.

Make it a goal for Term 3 to ask your child about their practice of Ganbaru, or Grit. Whether it’s Seiri, Ikigai, Kaizen, Wabi-sabi, or Kintsugi; how are they learning to chip away at their hard things?

Ganbaru is learned when students face something challenging, take one small step, make a few mistakes, tidy the space, remember their reason, try again, and realise once again that they did not fall apart. It’s the art of students conquering hard things one small step at a time and finding that it was hard, but they could handle it.

Larry McKeown, Secondary Teacher and Year 7 Coordinator