This article presents an approach to human behavior curriculum that requires students to achieve the purpose outlined in the Council on Social Work Education's 2008 Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards to "distinguish, appraise, and integrate multiple sources of knowledge, including research-based knowledge." It emphasizes and allows for critical thinking about knowledge relevant to trauma, resilience, and survivorship, providing empirically based information to support risk and resilience theory in an ecological, life course perspective. Information from a study of Nazi Holocaust survivors is used to illustrate how personal development, family functioning, and community support occur under the most severe stress. Survivor quotes illuminate the life course perspective as a means of thinking about how individuals maintain competence into old age.