Grit book8/16/2023 Put simply, grittier kids went further in competition. Duckworth reports on her research on competitive spellers, “Measurements of grit taken months before the final competition predicted how well spellers would eventually perform. It isn’t just in the discipline of mathematics that grit matters. Duckworth also warns about the danger of overemphasizing talent because it can easily lead to a fixed mindset, the kind of mindset that says “I’m not a math person so I can’t learn this” rather than allowing a growth mindset that says “I don’t know how to do this yet, but I can learn!” (You can read more about the difference between these two mindsets by reading this article.) At the very same time, effort makes skill productive.” Duckworth says talent can be a helpful boost at the beginning of the learning process, but she also notes that the best way to develop any skill is to focus on practicing at the edges of current ability, and that means embracing failure. Duckworth says that initially she too had been “distracted by talent” but she slowly learned that “aptitude did not guarantee achievement.” She further writes that “during the next several years of teaching, I grew less and less convinced that talent was destiny and more and more intrigued by the returns generated by effort.”ĭuckworth is quick to stress that “talent – how fast we improve in skill – absolutely matters.” But she also points out that “effort factors into the calculations twice, not once. But the more Duckworth paid attention to both her teaching and the research she was conducting, the more she realized that talent isn’t a good guide and that instead it was an attitude of grit and a willingness to grow that predicted student success. Duckworth observes that “conventional wisdom says that math is a subject in which the more talented students are expected to excel, leaving classmates who are simply ‘not math people’ behind.” While we tend to think of riding a bike as something anyone can learn with dedication, effort, and time, we are also used to thinking that math comes naturally to those who are good at it, and that if it doesn’t come naturally, it cannot be learned. What I needed to do differently.” Duckworth reports that “by senior year, David was taking the harder of Lowell’s two honors calculus courses.”ĭavid’s story might seem rather surprising. I basically tried to figure out, you know, what I did wrong. So I went to my teacher and asked for help. I knew I had to focus on what to do next. He said: “I did feel bad – I did – but I didn’t dwell on it. In her interview with David, she asked him how he dealt with that disappointing result. She recounts how while taking a freshman high school algebra course, David’s first math test came back with a D. In her groundbreaking book Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, Angela Duckworth – a psychology professor and 2013 MacArthur Fellow – introduces us to David.
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