Resilience Through the Life Span Project

In the book, On Playing a Poor Hand Well, published by W.W. Norton and Company, Mark Katz explored two questions. First, why is that so many people who were exposed to multiple risks and adversities in their childhood years never developed the problems some might have anticipated, and have gone on to lead meaningful and productive lives? And question number two, why is it that so many people who succumbed to those same risks and adversities in their childhood years—struggling for years with different kinds of behavioral, learning and life adjustment problems—staged a complete turnabout years later, and today are also leading meaningful and productive lives?

In more recent years, Mark has spent much less time on the first question, and much more time on the second. And in particular, the question, why is it that so many children who fail in school later go on to succeed in life?

Here’s where we need your help. We’re wanting to learn more about the turning point experiences, and second, third and fourth chance opportunities of people who struggled throughout their school lives, but who today feel their lives and meaningful and productive.

If you feel this describes the course of your life, you can help us out by participating in our project. To participate, simply respond to the questions below.


Thanks for taking the time to help us out. We’re also having people stop by Learning Development Services to participate in more in depth interviews. Are you interested? If so, please provide us with your e-mail address or telephone number so that we can contact you. We’re collecting a list of volunteers from a variety of different sources, and plan to choose people from this list. If you wish to participate, and your name is chosen, we’ll be contacting you in the near future.


Thank you for your participation.