Musings on Grit
Mar. 23rd, 2026 08:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alterinAbout 10 years ago, the big word in education was Grit. Grit was roughly described as the ability to overcome challenges.
I've never had a lot of grit. I've been able to get where I am and to float by and to sometimes succeed by a combination of beginner's luck, intelligence, and just an ability to pick up things and understand basic concepts. It kinda works out for me sometimes.
Where I've failed has been because of a lack of grit. I would start a new skill or hobby, and I would be fairly quickly pretty good for a beginner. When it comes to small roadstops or small challenges, my journey would either end or get sidetracked. Over the years, I've gotten better at this, but I'm a flighty pick up something and move on type of person, and I've shown a big resistance to working on my lack of grit. I don't have enough grit to get more grit?
Anyways, back to education. Ten years ago the word was Grit. Today, education has completely abandoned grit, and I'm trying to build up enough grit to put into words how dangerous and how horrendous this is.
My path to "success" will not necessarily work for anyone else. I'm not tooting my own horn when I say my natural "inclinations" or my natural "intelligence" or whatever you want to call my flighty nature is my biggest, most fatal flaw. Because grit, that thing I lack, is so much more important than any of those things that I possess, and someone with a lot of grit will be able to go so much farther and be so much more successul than I was/am.
So, it's incredibly sad when I see how much education has, not only tried to deemphasize, but has almost made grit a dirty word. We've abandoned basic coping skills. You gain grit by attempting to do something, failing, and getting yourself back up and trying again.
Education has decided that failure is a dirty word, and it's not. We need to embrace failure as the ultimate learning tool. Instead of letting students use the word "anxiety" as this emergency parachute that will let them completely abandon trying, we need to let them sit with their anxiousness and try to overcome it. And maybe, it will be painful. But trying to control the circumstances and the situations surrounding their anxiousness will allow them to grow and get past it.
Grit was a great idea that explains so much about what we're actually trying to do, and instead of embracing it because it's a real skill that will help so much more than the "hard" skills that we try to instill on students and learners, we've abandoned it because we don't have enough grit to see it through. Honestly, I'm not sure the education has enough grit to see anything through. It's just one fad after another and a refusal because we don't see instant results. And I hope the irony is palpable.
I've never had a lot of grit. I've been able to get where I am and to float by and to sometimes succeed by a combination of beginner's luck, intelligence, and just an ability to pick up things and understand basic concepts. It kinda works out for me sometimes.
Where I've failed has been because of a lack of grit. I would start a new skill or hobby, and I would be fairly quickly pretty good for a beginner. When it comes to small roadstops or small challenges, my journey would either end or get sidetracked. Over the years, I've gotten better at this, but I'm a flighty pick up something and move on type of person, and I've shown a big resistance to working on my lack of grit. I don't have enough grit to get more grit?
Anyways, back to education. Ten years ago the word was Grit. Today, education has completely abandoned grit, and I'm trying to build up enough grit to put into words how dangerous and how horrendous this is.
My path to "success" will not necessarily work for anyone else. I'm not tooting my own horn when I say my natural "inclinations" or my natural "intelligence" or whatever you want to call my flighty nature is my biggest, most fatal flaw. Because grit, that thing I lack, is so much more important than any of those things that I possess, and someone with a lot of grit will be able to go so much farther and be so much more successul than I was/am.
So, it's incredibly sad when I see how much education has, not only tried to deemphasize, but has almost made grit a dirty word. We've abandoned basic coping skills. You gain grit by attempting to do something, failing, and getting yourself back up and trying again.
Education has decided that failure is a dirty word, and it's not. We need to embrace failure as the ultimate learning tool. Instead of letting students use the word "anxiety" as this emergency parachute that will let them completely abandon trying, we need to let them sit with their anxiousness and try to overcome it. And maybe, it will be painful. But trying to control the circumstances and the situations surrounding their anxiousness will allow them to grow and get past it.
Grit was a great idea that explains so much about what we're actually trying to do, and instead of embracing it because it's a real skill that will help so much more than the "hard" skills that we try to instill on students and learners, we've abandoned it because we don't have enough grit to see it through. Honestly, I'm not sure the education has enough grit to see anything through. It's just one fad after another and a refusal because we don't see instant results. And I hope the irony is palpable.
no subject
Date: 2026-03-29 08:23 pm (UTC)Sure once they start taking AP courses or they're taking higher level math (and then we're out of my reach of when exactly is appropriate), okay sure - absolutely. And when they're past their core college courses, again - absolutely. I can't imagine a modern coding degree that doesn't have 'vibe coding' baked into its curriculum.
And as an ELA teacher, we do cover the skills that looks for bias and looks for where there are gasps in logic, and hopefully, there's enough there that when they are in a domain specific class they can make the connection, "oh this is like when we did this."
But they need to know reality before they have a chance of being able to check it. And when I'm asking a student to reflect on how they performed on a speech, they shouldn't be looking at AI, who didn't look at their speech anyways, they need to show me the foundational skills that I'm trying to teach.
Not able to read the Times, but I like the discussion - I've seen a few of those, possibly with the same lady.