This article draws on qualitative data collected in New Zealand over a 6-month period to examine how participants in and involved with TeachFirst New Zealand (TFNZ) rely on notions of grit and resilience to explain the underachievement of their Māori and Pasifika students. I aim to illustrate that participants face pressure not only to instill resilience in their students but also to enact resilience themselves as they face repeated failures and frustrations in the urban and rural contexts in which they teach. Although participants could interpret their students’ refusal to adhere to classroom norms as modes of resistance against schooling practices that have perpetuated colonial legacies, instead they frame students as passive and apathetic recipients of content rather than as agentic actors within their education.
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