The Significance Of Grit : A Conversation With Angela Lee Duckworth Essay

In conclusion, grit is found to be an essential quality of learning for students to achieve high standards of perseverance and passion characteristic trait. It is a character trait that is associated with success whereas every student or learner who has grit is likely to succeed in their learning

Correspondence regarding this paper should be addressed to Samantha Callahan, Danielle Patrick, Sara Roderick, and Kahla Stygar, Department of Psychology, Lindenwood University, 209 South Kingshighway, St. Charles, Mo, 63301

Duckworth explains people with grit are those who confront failure and don’t give up easily. She did research on the U.S Army to determine their grit. She realize, if the soldiers had a though of mind of grit they showed good results in their military performance on summer camp. Also, there was a fascinating research she had with taxi drivers relating to grit. Commonly, one would think that taxi drivers make more money in a rainy day. But what she found out was that taxi drivers work less hours in rainy days because they would make the sufficient money they needed for the day. In similarity, she compare this research to talent and grit. One with talent will spent less time on something so they stop immediately once they have proficient. In the other hand, someone with grit will spend longer time and get more out of it.

Grit, what is this? Is it success, is it failure, or is it talent? As Angela Duckworth said “Grit is passion and perseverance for very long-term goals. Grit is having stamina. Grit is sticking with your future, day-in and 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. Grit is living life like it’s a marathon, not a sprint.” Grit is a combination of strength, persistence, focus, and dedication that helps a person to maintain the optimism and discipline needed to persevere in their goals even if they are head to head with failure. Grit does not depend on talent, IQ, or success. Grit is the ability to fail and learn from your mistake, in order to come back next

When it comes to bullying in schools it has plenty of negative effects on some individual students. There are some kids who don’t have a problem with bullying because they are the problem.

Duckworth proposes that there are two ways of developing grit: from the inside-out (alone) and from the outside-in (with help). For developing grit from the inside-out, she addresses the subjects of interest, practice, purpose, and hope (91-2). For interest, she stresses that passion isn’t developed quickly, but over a long period of time through the processes of discovery, development, and a lifetime of deepening (102-4, 153). For practice, she emphasizes the importance of consistent deliberate practice, emphasizing quality of time spent practicing over quantity of time, which includes setting “stretch goals” slightly beyond current abilities (118, 121-3, 126). For purpose, Duckworth again defines and stresses the importance of purposeful top-level goals (143-4, 147-8, 160). She defines hope as a combination of relentless perseverance and optimism -- always continuing after failure and believing in oneself (169, 173, 175, 178, 180, 193-5). For developing grit from the outside-in, she stresses the importance of parenting, extracurriculars and culture. For parenting, she notes that all grit paragons have someone in their lives who challenged them to achieve beyond their limits while providing support (212, 220). For extracurriculars, she noted a direct relationship between perseverance in an activity and grittiness later in life, arguing that these activities both require and build grit (223-6, 228-241). For culture, she noted that people conform culture, so joining a gritty culture makes it easy to develop grit (244, 247, 263). The concept of culture in Grit connects to the concepts of social capital, and the multiplier effect because the relationships made between individuals within a gritty culture can mutually spur development of grit. The perseverance and hard work required by daily deliberate practice connects to the long, arduous hours worked by managers every day. Deliberate

Grit is a predictor of academic, professional, and personal success. Grit can be defined as strength of character or the ability to overcome failure and continue to work toward success. People with grit are not always the people with the most natural ability, but their work ethic and ability to overcome obstacles allows them to achieve success. Grit is a very valuable characteristic in almost any venture, as it gives someone an advantage in overcoming the inevitable obstacles they will face. However, grit is much easier adopted when an individual has a growth mindset.

In Chapter 9 of Grit, Angela Duckworth argues that a growth mindset, rather than a fixed mindset, leads to more success. She shows that a growth mindset leads to a more optimistic outlook on failures, which further leads to perseverance and the ability to take on new challenges without giving up. Using additional research, I agree with Duckworth’s claim that a growth mindset makes an individual more successful because a growth mindset transforms obstacles into learning opportunities and fosters hope, which are essential skills to overcoming failures and becoming successful.

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

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.

Have you ever set a long-term goal and were so determined to meet that goal no matter what happened? Angela Duckworth states, “Grit is passion and perseverance for very long-term goals. Grit is having stamina. Grit is sticking with your future, day in and 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”. Sticking with a long-term goal, when you seem to have hit every bump in the road possible means that you contain grit. In class, we discussed how talent is inversely related to grit. Angela Duckworth did a study and made high school students take her grit test. In this test, she realized that the more grit that the student possessed, the higher chance that student would graduate.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Langeda Bontemps, Department of Psychology, Longwood University, Farmville, VA 23909. Email: langeda.bontemps@live.longwood.edu

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary gives many different definitions defining the word “grit”. A definition that caught my attention was “unyielding courage in the face of hardship or danger” .It gave me a personal reference as to reaching a goal, you have to be faced with challenges that you’ll need to conquer with grit being included. In Angela Lee Duckworth’s TED Talk, “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance,” she claims that having students being pushed to the max is the only way to see the full extent of grit, and I agree with Duckworth. I was able to demonstrate grit on becoming a better basketball play after not making the team my sophomore year of high school. Ever since I was disappointed in my results of not making the team, I had told myself this wasn’t going to mean I was done playing basketball .I gave myself perseverance in knowing I could make it next year with motivation.

Growing up, children are often told the common phrase, “If at first, you don't succeed try, try, again…” (W.C. Fields). This is used to teach children to never give up, a way to ensure that they can triumph over adversity and grow upon their grit. Although, people usually forget the second part of that quote, “…Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it.” (W.C. Fields). The second half of the quote is a full contrast to the first half, this is telling children to give up and just stop trying. Those who give up are often thought of having no grit. Some wonder if grit is necessary for society, to be more specific if grit is something that should be taught in school, I feel that it should not. Students switch interests so often that it is hard for them to stick with the same interests as time passes. When a student is enthused about a subject, I see grit as a way for one to express their interests. When one’s passion is put to the test and it feels like there is no progress or no more enjoyment left in that passion is when true grit is shown. Those who support the idea of grit, like Angela Duckworth, believe that grit is a big factor in how one succeeds.

One may wonder, what indeed makes one successful and what has an effect on our psychological traits? Angela Duckworth, in her non-fiction book Grit, attempts to answer this question by making the claim that “grit, talent, and all other psychological traits relevant to success in life are influenced by genes and also by experience”.(82).” Duckworth supports her claim through the use of anecdotal stories and researchreferencing studies conducted by researchers. One example Duckworth uses includes the “Flynn Effect,”(83) attributed to Jim Flynn. He analyzed IQ scores and its rapid growth through the decades to explain how it is socially multiplied. In general, Duckworth attempts to convince the audience that the characteristics making up a person come from one’s genes as well as personal experiences. I am in agreement with Duckworth’s claim, because I have found multiple sources of evidence that supports it. Also, her claim is the only logical explanation for our developing psychological traits and its effect towards success. First we must explore the Flynn Effect and what it means to us as a society.