Chris Flynn Effect

Throughout Grit, Angela Duckworth argues that grit is the single most important factor in determining success of an individual. She splits the argument into three parts: the concept of grit and why it matters, the proper use and understanding of the goal hierarchy, and how an individual can develop grit. Duckworth’s argument is important because it replaces the traditional viewpoint of success being determined by talent to one which sees success as a result of passion and perseverance.

In the book Wes (the author) gets ready to jump out of the plane; he contemplates his life and the person he longs to become and begins to consider all of the people who influenced his life, which helps him, realize that he wants to stay at Valley Forge to attend junior college, It shows how much he grew, by recognizing how much the people in his life have influenced him. Wes had the resources he needed to succeed because of his support system. His mother and grandparents put him through military school which he attended until he received his associate’s degree. Attending military school helped Wes make the connections he needed to get into a good college. Wes knew that he was going to go to college and he stuck to that plan and received a scholarship and completed his master’s degree at Oxford University.

Angela developed a short questionnaire called the “Grit Test”. One must answer the short questions and the results show where you stand on the scale of Grit. She found that the Grit score of someone predicts the level of the achievement they can have under difficult or challenging circumstances. She tried this test at the United States Military Academy, where she had the cadets take the short test and found that the ones who had the highest Grit were the ones who were most likely to go the through with the stringent training program they went through called the “Beast Barracks”. Not the ones with the highest IQ’s, the most talent, or even the most athletic. She tried again in the Scripp’s Spelling Bee, and saw that those who were most intelligent but had a low Grit score were most likely to not make it as far as those who had a higher score. She declared that those who had higher Grit were more likely to pass because they studied harder and with determination. In all of those, it seemed that Grit was the factor that made the students stand out when it came to success, once again proving high IQ’s always being better wrong. Logos is a bit short, as many times in other articles, Grit is simply a glossed over idea that has been thought of up before. In other places, such as a physics teacher and his students in a school in Australia, he saw that Grit had little to do with

And it wasn't social intelligence. It wasn't good looks, physical health, and it wasn't IQ. It was grit (3:00).” Grit is passion and perseverance for very long-term goals; grit is having stamina. Grit is sticking with your future, day in, day out, not just for the week, not just for the month, but for years, and working really hard to make that future a reality.

Chris was a great student, completing Emory College with straight As and then without any notice, was gone. He donated his savings and “burned all his cash” (20) and he gave his “money to OXFAM to fight hunger”(31). He could have used his skills and charm to help every charity in the country. he could have ben a lawyer for the poor and oppressed. His problem was that “ you attempted to talk him out of something, he wouldn’t argue. He just nodded his head politely and did what he wanted” (119). His parents were under the impression that he was on his way to law school to help society but “they misread him” (20). He disappeared from it all instead of facing the challenges that everyone must face about their family, society and future.

Most people subscribe to the belief that Paul Tough refers to the cognitive hypothesis that suggests that success depends primarily on cognitive skills. They argue that intelligence is measured based on IQ tests which include the ability to recognize letters, words, detect patterns, and calculate. They say that the simplest way to acquire and develop skills is through practicing them continuously. Children should also begin practicing as early as possible to nurture skills. However, in the book titled “How Children Succeed,” Tough introduces the character hypothesis which explains that non–cognitive skills such as self-control, curiosity, self-confidence, conscientiousness, and grit are crucial to achieving success than sheer brainpower or cognitive skills (Tough 49). To justify his argument, he uses research findings from psychologists and neuroscientists. They say that character is developed by encountering with failure and overcoming it. The hidden power of character explains why some children perform well while others fail. However, I say that linking grit and character is pervasive and unfair to kids from poor backgrounds; particularly when the author states that academic proficiency is not a determinant of future success. The big point on Tough’s main arguments is that children succeed with character and not test scores.

Imagine a brilliant high school child named Michael who has a high GPA and is enrolled in the honors and AP curriculum; he precipitates in multitudes of extracurricular activities including sports and clubs. He gets accepted to many schools and received many scholarships. However, even with financial aid, he and his family are economically deprived and therefore incapable in funding a college education. This scenario is not an imagination but a common event in modern day America. Fifty percent of eighteen to twenty-five year old adults who did not attend a higher education institution experienced a similar situation (Why). These people belong in a university, an establishment whose nature is to judge base on the intelligence not on the

Chris McCandless was an intelligent kid. Graduating high school with all honors and being accepted into and attending Emory University. He was athletic and on top of all this had an upper middle class income. Life wasn’t that bad for Chris, and yet right after he graduated Emory, as stated by Aslan in the “Gradesaver” article “He lets his parents think he is interested in law school, but instead, after graduating with honors, he donates his $25,000 savings anonymously

Gladwell reveals that to excel in the world, one must be born with or introduced to the right tools. These tools may include being born into a high class home, when one is born, as well as being recognized early in school. When Lewis Terman, in 1921, conducted the Genetic Study of Genius observation, he only took into account the subjects I.Q. scores. It wasn’t until later, when he noticed the divergence of three different groups A, B, and C, did he realize that it wasn’t only about scores. The groups were separated by societal class, group A born from the high end of the scale while C was from the lower end. Group A, as well as most of B, did superb at the same time that group C fell out. Intelligence

Kelsey’s recent ongoing stress is resignated around his academics and family priorities within the past two years. He was an Engineering major in one of the top schools in Wisconsin, he felt pressure to make his family happy and pursue his academic major. Before applying to the Mechanical Engineering program, Kelsey bit off more than he could chew. Seeking membership into a fraternity, visiting home every other weekend to assist his family financially and emotionally during his mother’s bankruptcy period, and taking a huge course load of 16 credits. As a result of his commitment and sacrifice, sadly his grades failed as a result. Within this year, Kelsey went from withholding a full ride (scholarships, grants, fellowships) and summer internship to losing everything including his studentship at Wisconsin. During this tough time in Kelsey’s life, I observed the frustration he endured during this strategic time. He found himself questioning his

Passion and determination towards long term goals (otherwise known as ‘grit’) are parts of cognitive development. (Kantrowitz 2016). Grit is seen to be necessary for academic expertise in all fields ranging from sciences to the arts. (Ericsson, Prietula and Cokely 2007). Natural born Intelligence Quotient, also known as ‘IQ’, is described as a person’s ability to complete problems and understand concepts. This is compared across the population to give an average IQ score (Latham 2006). However, can this number accurately measure whether a human will become an expert in a field sooner than a grittier person? The focus of this essay is to evaluate whether grit or IQ has the most positive effect on cognitive development.

One of the most interesting and controversial areas in behavioral genetics, human intelligence is currently assumed to be subject to both genetic and environmental influences.

Debates on the relationship between birth order and intelligence have been remaining controversial. Birth order is considered as a person's ranking by age among his or her siblings. There have been numerous researchers studying about this subject to find whether firstborns generally have a higher IQ scores than their siblings. Some scientists conclude that birth order strongly influents intelligence; however, others oppose to this, claiming that birth order has no effect on intelligence. In this paper, my study deals with the birth order effects on intelligence.

Grit is often used to view how successful a person will be because of their willingness to not quit on a task. A major supporter of grit is Angela Duckworth, a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. Duckworth had tested cadets of West Point Academy as they experience the “Beast”. The “Beast” is the first

Angela Duckworth was a seventh-grade teacher in New York Public Schools, and became a psychologist. She is the author of the TED Talk “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance”. The main point of this TED Talk is that having grit is what will help you to succeed in life. She asks herself, who is successful and why, and she concluded that people who succeed in life are those who have grit, which is the passion and perseverance to achieve every long-term goal. She emphasized that talent or social intelligent is not what will lead you to succeed, but the key that will help you to succeed are passion and perseverance. Those who can stick with their future goals for years and work hard to make that future a reality is more likely to succeed. Moreover, she explained in her speech that growth mindset is great for building grit, which based on the TED Talk people who have a growth mindset are those people that do not believe that failure is a permanent condition. In my point of view those people who have growth mindset are more likely to be successful in life.