Archives for category: Grit
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“Grit” and “Resilience” Are Buzzwords that Blame the Victim for Not Pulling Him/Herself by Bootstraps

By dianeravitch
November 25, 2019 //
64

The Boston Globe published this opinion piece questioning the validity of concepts like grit and resilience. 

Author Alissa Quart interviews Christine White, a woman who grew up in extreme poverty yet managed to build a successful career helping people who struggled as she did. But not by coaching them to have more “grit” and “resilience.”

Christine White, writes Quart, has written

a number of posts on on her nonprofit’s blog questioning this resilience refrain. She believes that when “we are obsessing about resilience it obscures the fundamental issues that people have, like a lack of privilege or a history of trauma.” When “resilience” is applied to at-risk kids, says White, it implies “the solutions reside within an individual and not their context: ‘resilience’ skews conversations away from equity.” The assumption is that having “character” will help traumatized people flourish — and if they don’t flourish, there is an implied lack of character.

“Ninety percent of resilience conversations would be better if the focus was, instead, on racial and economic inequities,” she wrote in correspondence with me.

But “resilience” and “grittiness” have become ubiquitous honorifics — likely to come out of the mouths of not only teachers but also therapists, urban planners, businessmen, and policymakers, all praising individual pluck.

Thanks to Angela Duckworth’s bestseller of the same name, “grit” is now a part of American school life: In New Hampshire, for instance, some grammar school students are taught “grit skills” by teachers who follow a “grit curriculum.” One grit lesson includes interviewing a neighbor, for example, who has shown grit and creating that person’s “perseverance walk,” outlining how they achieved their goals.

The terms have even spawned an industry of books, apps, and gurus:

There is a now even a grit and resilience industry.

“Resilience is knowing that you are the only one that has the power and responsibility to pick yourself up,” says Mary Holloway, a “resilience coach” and the creator of the “Boom Bounce Wow Resilience Method.” There are also dozens of self-help books promising to make you more resilient or more gritty, including one that promises to create resilience with the subtitle “How to Grow an Unshakable Core of Calm, Strength, and Happiness.” One of the biggest resilience bestsellers is “Option B” by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg.

Apps have also gotten into the resilience and positive psychology game, with names such as ResilientMe and Happify. And there is even a “resilience planner” bearing the legend “Stay Resilient 2019,” which is currently sold out…

There’s also a growing — though much smaller — academic backlash to the term “resilience.” Critics note the focus on “resilience” can ignore the structural gaps of our economy, for example. Should we really be building personal capacities to triumph over, say, the “adversity” that is the current scarcity of public funding for education?

Call grit and resilience what they are: a substitute for the structural and financial changes that give people genuine opportunity to get ahead.

These terms are an effort to substitute “the power of positive thinking” for equity.

 

 

Categories Accountability, Grit, Inequality, Poverty, Racism

Nancy Bailey: What’s Better than Grit? Reading Books and a Good Teacher

By dianeravitch
September 10, 2018 //
59

Nancy Bailey opened her mail and saw that Angela Duckworth was on the cover of the handout for Costco Connection, touting the virtues of grit and why every child needs it.

I had somehow hoped we had passed through the “grit” phase and moved on to something else. Probably, the fact that it is featured on the cover of the Costco flyer means that it is already passé.

Duckworth has has list:

Her grit goals for children include the following:

I am a hard worker.
Setbacks don’t discourage me.
I finish whatever I begin.
I don’t give up easily.
I am diligent.
I will never give up.
Numbers 3 and 6 might especially give us pause.

Nancy rightly notes that teachers have been instilling “grit” since time immemorial.

For starters, grit is a repackaged idea. If you’ve read “The Little Engine Who Could” by Watty Piper to your child, you’ve taught them to try their best. Many children’s books incorporate the idea of endurance. It’s a timeless virtue.

Teaching character traits like perseverance through children’s literature seems more meaningful, and enjoyable, than browbeating students to carry through on every task to prove their stamina.

Lots of good ideas here. Nancy warns about the “strictness” imposed by KIPP-style no-excuses.

It’s important to remember, that with grit and high-stakes standards, including Common Core, children are not always setting their own goals. They aren’t dreaming of passing tests. They want to do well on them, or they fear them, because it’s what adults tell them to do. They’re being set up to please adults.

That’s a huge problem with grit and what makes it disingenuous.

Categories Accountability, Character, Discipline, Grit, Testing

Paul Thomas: “Everything You Know Is Wrong”

By dianeravitch
June 17, 2018 //
18

Paul Thomas considers some of the research verities that have recently been exploded, like “the marshmallow test,” “growth mindset,” and “the word gap.”

He might have added “grit” to the list of recently debunked nostrums. Christine Yeh of the University of San Francisco wrote a terrific piece in Education Week last year titled “Forget Grit. Focus on Inequality.” She is right, of course. If a child is hungry, grit won’t fill her tummy. If she is hungry and homeless, grit doesn’t change the objective facts of her life.

He writes:

“It may well be true that everything you know is wrong, but that doesn’t mean it must stay that way. Good intentions and missionary zeal must be replaced by greater philosophical awareness and the sort of skepticism a critical lens provides.

“This is not about fatalism—giving up on research—but about finding a better way forward, one that rejects programs and blanket ideologies and keeps our focus on students and learning along with the promises of formal schooling as a path to equity and justice, not test scores and compliant students.”

It takes courage to think for yourself, especially in a culture that values compliance and conformity.

Categories Courage, Grit

Carol Dweck of Stanford Wins $3.9 Million Prize in China for Her Work on Growth Mindset

By dianeravitch
December 20, 2017 //
54

Congratulations to Carol Dweck of Stanford University for winning the first annual Yidan Prize, which is a prize of $3.9 million. She won for her work on “growth mindset,” which I tended to think was akin to “The Little Engine Who Could,” who climbed a difficult mountain by saying “I think I can, I think I can,” and he did. That was, as I was growing up, the optimistic spirit of the 1940s and 1950s, as seen by a child.

I like what Dweck said in Hong Kong as she received the prize. She told her Chinese hosts to get rid of the “cram culture” that is common in their schools.

From the South China Post:

“Children’s learning should be joyful and focused on understanding and inquiry – rather than the drilling that Hong Kong schools have become known for – a renowned psychologist, recently in the city to receive the world’s biggest education prize, has said.

“Professor Carol Dweck’s remarks come as the city’s government prepares to announce whether a standard test often associated with high-pressure rote learning will continue next year.
Dweck, from Stanford University in the US, was in Hong Kong last week to collect the inaugural Yidan Prize for Education Research, for her groundbreaking research on the power of the “growth mindset”, based on the belief that intelligence is not fixed and can be developed over time, given the right approach.

“The prize was started in 2016 by Charles Chen Yidan, co-founder of mainland tech giant Tencent. It comprises one award for education research and another for education development. Each laureate receives a gold medal and HK$30 million (US$3.9 million)…

“After years of research, Dweck – whose findings have been implemented in countries such as the US, Norway and Peru – found that children with a “fixed mindset” would worry whether they were smart and would succeed in life and stop caring about learning. Those with a “growth mindset”, she found, could joyfully learn and develop their abilities.

“But Dweck noted that the concept was not about telling children to work hard, which is common in Hong Kong, where many parents view academic success as paramount to their children’s future.
“Chinese culture is already telling children to work hard. That’s not growth mindset because they’re working hard for the product, not for the growth or the joy of learning,” she said.

“The professor also warned against “tiger parenting” – referring to demanding parents, particularly in Asian cultures, pushing their children to attain high grades using methods such as relentless drilling.

“She said these students could be extremely anxious, and feel worthless and depressed if they did not succeed at something.

“She said the “growth mindset” should instead be about focusing on understanding, questioning and thinking, and results would follow after that.

“The Hong Kong government is expected to announce in the next two months whether the Primary Three Territory-wide System Assessment will continue next year. Originally designed to enhance learning and teaching by providing the government with data to review policies, the assessment has become associated with a drilling culture in Hong Kong.

“This has led parents and educators to call for the test to be scrapped, ending the pressure it puts on pupils, and for the curriculum to be reviewed as a whole. The government recently began a review of primary and secondary school curriculums.“

Carol Dweck could be a huge force in prodding the authorities in China to renounce the cram culture, and that would benefit the world. She just might help to save the next generation from the Testocracy.

Congratulations, Professor Dweck!

Categories Grit, International

Betsy DeVos Has Very Poor Work Habits, Unexcused Absences, High Rates of Truancy

By dianeravitch
December 3, 2017 //
22

We know that Trump likes to get away to the golf course every weekend, preferably at one of his own resorts. He is not used to working long days, every day.

Neither does Betsy DeVos. Probably, when people are so rich that money is never an issue, they fail to develop the habits and grit needed to put in a full day’s work, every day.

Matthew Chapman, a video game designer and science fiction writer from Texas, discovered that Betsy doesn’t like to work very hard. It is just not her thing.

He writes:

“In her short tenure of office, DeVos has dismantled protections for campus rape survivors, rolled back support for students with disabilities, and gutted relief programs for victims of for-profit student loan scams.

“However, while not rolling back important civil rights policies, it seems that what DeVos enjoys doing most in her day-to-day duties is … absolutely nothing.

“A FOIA request and subsequent report by the watchdog group American Oversight, aptly titled “Unexcused Absences,” revealed some startling numbers on how often DeVos simply doesn’t show up for work:

An analysis by American Oversight found that during that period — which stretches from February 8th to July 19th — DeVos only completed a full day of work 67% of the time.

“The report found that over those five and a half months, DeVos took 15 days off, 21 half days off, and 11 long weekends — during a time period that included 113 federally mandated work days.”

What kind of a message is DeVos sending to students and teachers? A large part of the job is showing up. Although considering what she does when she shows up, maybe she should stay home more often.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Character, Discipline, Grit

After the Devastating Fires in Wine Country, Schools Are Open!

By dianeravitch
October 17, 2017 //
13

This is a heartening story about the schools in Wine Country in California, which just suffered through horrifying fires.

Educators who lost their own homes were back on the job, to make sure the children had a safe space.

http://www.sfgate.com/education/article/Wine-Country-fires-Educators-some-of-whom-lost-12282966.php

This is what educators do.

“Principal Teresa Ruffoni greeted students at Crane Elementary School in Rohnert Park on Monday morning, their first day back in class after a series of deadly fires burned through thousands of homes in neighboring Santa Rosa and in other cities and towns across the region.

“What Ruffoni didn’t tell the children was that a week earlier she had grabbed a few of her most vital belongings and fled from flames that would soon consume her home in Hidden Valley Estates, a hard-hit subdivision in the hills of northern Santa Rosa.

“She was too focused on the students, and navigating an extraordinary period for education in Sonoma, Napa and Mendocino counties…

“Amid the chaos and uncertainty, district administrators and teachers have been scrambling to get schools back open, knowing it was a critical step to bring a sense of security and normalcy to children traumatized by the destruction.

“That’s why on Friday, Cotati-Rohnert Park Unified Superintendent Robert Haley gathered the entire district staff in a school gym.

“Do you want to try and reopen Monday?” he asked.

“The answer, he said, was a solid yes.

“I looked up, and front and center was a teacher with a smile on her face,” he said. “Her house burned down, but she was ready to help her colleagues get kids back in school.”

“Ruffoni, despite possessing only a hodgepodge of mismatched clothes grabbed in the dark of night, was ready to go, too.

“It felt like the right thing to do, Haley said, to help the whole county move forward.

“For many of our students, the place they feel safest other than at home is school,” Haley said. “The adults they trust more than anyone other than their parents are their teachers. That’s why we’re here today.”

Categories Accountability, California, Character, Courage, Education Reform, Grit, Love, Principals, Teachers

Grit Makes a Come Back

By dianeravitch
March 23, 2017 //
62

Just when you thought we were done with discussing, debating, and dissecting grit, the New York Times publishes an article about those “character strengths” that affluent children seem to have more of. Thomas Edsall writes about the subject here.

While there are substantial numbers of low-income children who have strength of character, the measures used continue to show that income and whatever is measured are correlated.

Attempts to develop educational strategies to promote the development of noncognitive skills are still in the beginning stages. Many experiments are being conducted in high-poverty, high-crime neighborhoods where the challenges in developing noncognitive skills have been most acute.

He goes on to cite James Heckman, Angela Duckworth, Paul Tough, and others who have written about the non cognitive skills that lead to success. Citing a researcher, he says that “noncognitive skill levels rose significantly not only as family income grew but also as the mother’s education level rose. In addition, children in continuously married two-parent families did better than children with single parents.”

What precisely is being measured?

Edsall sees a political angle to these issues, namely, Trump’s claim that Democrats and liberal policy is responsible for not teaching grit, perseverance, and character:

What is to be made of all these findings?

First, the spectrum of noncognitive skills and character strengths are a major factor in American class stratification. Whether these factors are more or less important than extrinsic forces like globalization, automation and declining unionization remains unclear, but changing family structures are evidently leaving millions of men and women ill-equipped to ascend the socioeconomic ladder.

Second, neither religious leaders nor practicing politicians nor government employees have found the levers that actually make disadvantaged families more durable or functional. As a corollary, the failure of government efforts to affect or slow down negative developments has left an opening for conservatives to argue that government interventions make things worse.

For liberals and the Democratic Party, the continued failure of government initiatives to achieve measurable gains in the acquisition of valuable noncognitive skills by disadvantaged youngsters constitutes a major liability.

This liability played a role in the outcome of the 2016 election. Throughout the campaign, President Trump repeated comments like this one:

The Democratic Party has run nearly every inner city for 50 years, 60 years, 70 years, and even more than 100 years they have produced only poverty, failing schools, and broken homes.

This and related charges will continue to dog Democratic candidates in 2018 and 2020 unless progressive policy advocates can find ways to more effectively highlight and capitalize on the ample supply of character strengths evident everywhere among America’s poor. This is extraordinarily important.

Advocates for the disadvantaged must also highlight and capitalize on the many demonstrably effective antipoverty solutions already well known to the academic, research and nonprofit communities. Without better funded and better crafted organization and advocacy on behalf of the poor, the propaganda and accusations now emanating from the right will ineluctably reshape the law of the land — and once institutionalized, such “remedies” could prove staggeringly difficult to reverse.

In my book Reign of Error, I responded to these claims, one by one. First, pointing out that test scores and graduation rates are at an all-time high, and dropout rates are at an all-time low. Then by explaining patiently that poverty takes a toll on children and families. They often lack decent health care, decent housing, and safe neighborhoods, which affects school performance and motivation.

Trump plans to take a wrecking ball to America’s public schools. He has no ideas, and his Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has only one idea: to promote alternatives to public schools. Did people like them succeed because they have grit? No, they were born rich. Trump was born on third base; DeVos at home plate.

Categories Grit, Poverty

Joanne Yatvin on “True Grit”

By dianeravitch
July 13, 2016 //
13

Joanne Yatvin is a retired teacher, principal, superintendent, and literacy expert in Oregon.


Topping the national news several months ago was a story about two dangerous criminals escaping from a high security prison. For several months they had devoted themselves to preparations: persuading a woman prison employee to get them the tools they needed and agree to drive them away when they got outside the prison walls, digging a route to the outside of the prison from their cell, and working late at night to avoid attracting notice. When their preparations were finally complete, they also went through several rehearsals before carrying out their plan. Unfortunately for them, they were captured only a few days after their escape. Their promised driver had broken her promise and left them without a plan or an opportunity to practice any new tactics to reach safety.

What interested me about this story was that men who had wasted so many years of their lives in crime rather than seeking education or legal jobs were able to plan so well, work hard, and show so much patience in carrying our their escape. They certainly showed “grit” when the goal was important to them and the stakes were high.
Another story of grit is told in one of my favorite movies, “Cool Hand Luke”, which is about a man arrested and imprisoned for a minor crime. Because he is smarter and more independent and resourceful than his fellow inmates, he is continually singled out for punishment and public humiliation. Yet, he endures everything and continues to defy prison rules and trying to escape. Finally, he steals a prison truck and drives a long distance before hiding out in a deserted building. Unfortunately, the prison officials manage to track him down and set fire to the building. In the end Luke chooses to take his own life rather than surrender. Yet, by losing his life he also wins: he will never go back to prison and no one can punish him ever again.

Although Luke is gone at the end of the movie, his lessons of “grit” inspire other prisoners to follow his example and stand up for themselves against prison cruelty. Although the movie shows so much harshness and sadness, its ultimate message is one of hope.

In both the real prison escape and the movie’s story, I found lessons about “grit” not understood by the experts now calling for teaching that skill to students in the classroom. Not tyrants, prison guards, nor teachers can teach grit. Human beings—and most animals– develop grit only when they are so dedicated to reaching a particular goal that they will push on through obstacles, rejections and repeated failures.

As a teacher and principal I often saw ordinary students develop grit on their own because the conditions in the classroom were right. Their teachers taught lessons that were interesting to young people and offered opportunities for self-chosen projects, collaboration with classmates, and innovation. And because the kids had already tasted success and satisfaction in previous classroom activities, they believed they could stretch themselves even further this time. Yes, the work was harder than before, but it was doable, and in their eyes the goal was worth the extra effort. They had already developed grit and could use it. And they believed in themselves.

Education should be a dynamic experience for all students. It’s not preparation for college or the workplace, but a laboratory for exploring who you are and what you want to do; for trying out your interests and talents in a safe place and for sifting out the gold buried in the sand of school subjects. It’s also a place to develop grit because you believe you can.

Categories Grit

Just When You Thought That “Grit” Had Been Discredited, Here Come the Federal Grit Tests

By dianeravitch
July 1, 2016 //
32

The federal test, the National Assessment of Education Progress–called “The Nation’s Report Card”–will begin testing “grit.” Grrr.

Politico.com reports:

QUESTIONING GRIT: How do issues such as “grit” – or perseverance – and school climate correlate to student test performance? Following next year’s National Assessment of Educational Progress, researchers hope to have more clues. The student questionnaire on NAEP in 2017 will include a series of questions that address what are known as “non-cognitive” skills. By asking several questions within the topic areas, acting NCES Commissioner Peggy Carr tells Morning Education they will get “multiple chances to get the best measurement possible.” Researchers will take the answers to create an index that’s compared with test scores to create a composite designed to reflect the relationship between factors such as grit and academic achievement. Students will also be asked about technology use and their socioeconomic status.

– A glance at questions piloted earlier this year suggests what researchers are looking for [http://1.usa.gov/296dnLY ], although how the questionnaire will look next year could change. One pilot question, for example, asked fourth graders if they have a “problem while working toward an important goal, how well can you keep working?” Another question asks how often they “felt left out of things at school?” The questionnaire typically takes students about 15 minutes to fill out, and is optional.

– These types of questions have long helped researchers and policymakers to better understand student learning, said Bill Bushaw, the executive director of the National Assessment Governing Board. He said no personally-identifying information is collected from the sample of students taking NAEP, and no questions are asked about personal beliefs or religion. “It really helps understand the differences in academic achievement and that’s really what this is about,” Bushaw said. For example, in the past, Bushaw said a question that asked students how many times they’d been absent in the last month led researchers to conclude that students who miss a lot of school have lower achievement. School districts have responded by focusing more on school attendance.

Just think. We will soon know which state has the grittiest students. Which race and ethnicity and gender needs more grit. Where the grit gap is. The possibilities for research are amazing!

Categories Grit, NAEP

Daniel Engber: What is “Grit”?

By dianeravitch
June 18, 2016 //
19

Daniel Engber, a writer for Slate, reviews Angela Duckworth’s new book about “grit” and how to become grittier.

 

He first places it within the context of a genre of self-help books that are a perennial staple on the bestseller list. How to Be Successful; How to Achieve Your Dreams; How to Win Friends and Influence People. or,“Every day in every way, I’m getting better.” Or grittier. One thinks of Dr. Pangloss.

 

He then considers it in the context of current psychological theories about how to be successful, or why some people succeed and others don’t. He wonders whether the term “grit” is a synonym for old-fashioned virtues like industriousness, perseverance, fortitude, conscientiousness.

 

Engber thinks there might be better ways to improve than working on grit, for example, by improving one’s study habits or showing up for school everyday.

 

He writes:

 

“If Duckworth’s book can tell us anything at all, it’s that we shouldn’t lose our focus every time we come across a new idea in shiny packaging. It might be better if we persevered and stuck to things that work.”

 

But then, Engber may be somewhat biased. He took the grit test and discovered that he has a low grit rating.

 

“It could be that having too much strength of purpose is worse than having not enough. At least that’s what I’d like to think: I took Duckworth’s test last week and learned to my dismay that I’m among the nation’s least gritty citizens. The trait is scored from 1 to 5, and I came in at 2.9. That sounds like it could be right around the average, but in fact it’s very low. According to Duckworth’s book, my grittiness puts me in the 20th percentile of American adults—more mercurial and weak-willed, less inclined to follow through, than four-fifths of the U.S. population.

 

“That’s OK with me. As a journalist, I thrive on flexibility, flitting around from one topic to another; I don’t believe my job lends itself to grit. Mine is not the only field where inconstancy can be a virtue. If you want to win forever on the football field, or join the military, or write a book about a big idea, then it might be best to stay on target, compete in everything, and finish strong. But others find their path through mindful wavering and steer away from simple answers.”

Categories Discipline, Grit
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