Grit has been popularized by Angela Duckworth's work and holds merit. Those willing to work through pain, discomfort, or boredom will be more successful than those who do not. An anecdote I often use is from a presentation given to insurance salesmen during the 1940s (and the masculine form is used because, at that time, only men sold insurance). The presenter had researched levels of sales success and found it boiled down to those who were willing to do the work others knew they needed to do but didn't. The extra cold call, the additional paperwork, and the extra pre-work before a call to close the deal.
Knowing that grit is a dividing trait between success and other alternatives is great awareness and can lead people to dig in. But some factors make having tenacity easier. In schools, these factors are sometimes called Academic Mindsets, and when they are part of the education process, they can lead to grittier students.
The academic mindsets are:
- I belong in this community,
- I can succeed at this,
- My ability and my competence grow with my effort,
- This work has value for me.
"I belong in this community."
When was a time when you felt you did not belong? Maybe you are a woman or minority in STEM. Or the lone Red Sox fan in an all-Yankees crowd. Taking chances, being bold, and wanting to actively participate are all less likely when someone feels out of place. Imposter syndrome sets in, and the reptile part of the brain screams loudly to get out. Representation in a community is essential, and when a student can go through an entire day of school without any interactions with an adult they connect with, they do not see themselves as belonging to the community. This is why hiring a strong and diverse staff is essential. If that is not possible for demographic or geographic reasons, alternatives such as guest speakers, field trips, documentaries, and books are great ways to bring outside communities to students.
"I can succeed at this."
The despair that comes with consistent failure kills the motivation to keep trying. Telling kids about Michael Jordan being cut from his high school varsity basketball team (when he was a 5'10" sophomore and the coach kept a 6'8" sophomore instead, before MJ grew 4 inches over the summer and kept growing to his eventual 6'6"), or Wayne Gretzky's "you miss 100% of the shots you don't take" are great stories, but do they resonate with a 17-year-old who identifies as a kid who has never gotten math or read well?
Success breeds confidence; without success, the confidence that one will succeed eventually is missing. The classic college professor "weed out" test at the beginning of a semester serves precisely this purpose and should be avoided at all costs. While giving a false sense of security that a course is easy, hard work is unnecessary, and inappropriately preparing students for high rigor is wrong, so is hitting students too hard upfront is equally inappropriate.
Rigor and support, two keys to building mastery, are needed for students to believe they can succeed. Building appropriate challenges where students can learn, understand, experience success, and then be stretched to the next level. Without the discomfort that comes from being stretched, boredom sets in. But missing the belief that the stretch is not a break based on prior achievement, that discomfort turns into pain to be avoided at all costs. So, students avoid the work and decide that earning a zero for not doing work is the better alternative.
"My ability and my competence grow with my effort."
Ample reasons exist for why people stop working to attain a goal. One main reason is not seeing gains from their effort. People who change their diet or exercise pattern to lose weight and do not see the scale pointing downward will return to their previous habits. Students who do not see or believe that their efforts are improving their understanding or grades also begin to give up on trying. Rather than grit being a trait portrayed by students, these consistent failures to improve act like sandpaper eroding willpower.
Schools over-test students with Star, MAP, and other universal screeners and underutilize the results. State testing is worse, with multiple days of elementary school taken up each year for tests that result in a single student score to parents and a holistic score to the school. These tests provide non-actionable feedback, but they allow for data points at parent-teacher conferences and notifications home to parents about how their students compare to all others who took the same test. Positive outcomes, such as identifying gifted or special learning abilities, occur. Still, these tests do not help teachers and schools make the micro-adjustments needed to improve learning as it happens.
When students see the same results year over year, this becomes their student identity. "I am not a math person." "I stink at reading." Parents see the results, which often lack helpful guidance, but use it to place students into expensive tutoring programs. This either takes away from or adds to other outside-school activities that students need and enjoy.
Good assessment techniques in classrooms allow teachers and students to know their current performance and develop strategies to improve. When early intervention happens, and the mental lightbulb turns on for students, confidence and motivation improve. I live for these breakthrough moments in class and love to see students excitedly dig into the material they were previously slogging through as they suddenly believe they can improve and succeed.
"This work has value for me."
All teachers have heard the dreaded question, "When will I ever use this?" Sometimes, the answer is they may not, and sometimes, the answer is you will use it in future coursework. When this is the consistent answer, students see the work lacks value. Algebra 1 classes incorporate skills students will need when they take calculus. Calculus is 3 years in the future, and only a small subset of students will need to take it. Not many 12-to-14-year-old Algebra 1 students are even thinking about their 4-year journey to calculus and how they had better soak up every math skill possible to be ready.
Students see that work has value (meaning or relevancy) when they can immediately apply their learning to the next skill or their life. If the homework directly impacts success the next day, students will see value and are likelier to do it. Also, if homework allows students flexibility to do the work they need to succeed, their autonomy will create motivation. Not all students are mature enough to handle this approach and need modeling before being set free, but not every student needs to do every bit of practice. Some understand the material already, and more practice does not further their development. Other students do not understand the content at all, so no amount of independent practice will pay dividends.
Teachers believe that valuable work is that with immediate impact and long-term value. Field trips, guest speakers, and real-world problems are great ways to show students how course content relates outside the classroom walls. If one student is inspired to follow a career path based on the experience, it is worth the teacher’s extra work to create it. For most students, value is based on the immediate return on their effort, so teachers should keep this front of mind when planning.
Conclusion
Grit is good but is more achievable when academic mindsets (also known as resilience beliefs) are evident. Classroom environments that intentionally include as many of the four mindsets as often as possible have the highest success levels. A recipe of rigor with support, with a healthy amount of meaningful work poured over an inclusive setting, creates a masterpiece.
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