Angela Duckworth Summary

In the article of The Limits Of “Grit” by David Denby there are plenty of interesting ideas that are brought up. One of the ideas that Denby brings up is teaching grit in schools. Denby thinks the idea of teaching grit should be taught it all schools. One point that Denby brings up is when he says the following “ If we suffer from a grit deficiency in this country, it shows up in our unwillingness to face what is obviously true—that poverty is the real cause of failing schools.” ( Denby,4) Denby explains that poverty is the real reason why some

“Who Gets to Graduate’ by Paul Tough, publish May, 2015 in the New York Times discusses. The story of a young girl’s mindset on college. It begins with her starting in college and first failure on a test. It highlighted the doubts she had in her abilities. This opening introduces the article’s man discussion, which involves low income students who want to earn a four year degree but experience “troubles” along the way. It then discusses statistics that show dropout rates are highest with low-income students. The author included ability versus economics status.

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.

Throughout high school, students are prepped for college. Almost the entire curriculum revolves around getting into or being prepared for college. Many of these students are independent and intelligent individuals. College may be the perfect place for them. Linda Lee contemplates the fact that even though statistics show that college graduates make the most money, the statistics also point out that these students were “the brightest and hardest-working” students. There are also students that fall between the cracks of these statistics. Some students may be skilled in certain areas, but do not make the test scores to apply for a university. Others may be on the

This chapter presents the statistical results of the correlational study of the relationship between students and college persistence who were enrolled from partnering high schools (Clay County, Corbin, McCreary County, North Laurel, South Laurel, and Whitley County) and the dual credit program. The study theorized that the provision of dual credit programs to participating high schools would affect the students’ choice to attend an institution of higher education or not based upon participation levels in dual credit classes. Furthermore, the study assumed that a relationship will exist in the grade point average earned and dual credit participation. The study was designed to test the assumptions

higher levels of grit are associated with higher levels of subjective and objective success, reliable means of increasing individual grit could positively impact long-term personal and academic trajectories.

With the workforce becoming more competitive in today’s economy, the educational requirements have increased. By the year 2020, approximately 65% of all jobs in the United States will require a postsecondary education and/or further training proceeding high school education (“Recovery”). One thing that is not increasing is the rate of college enrollment of students from the Detroit Public Schools or college enrollment in general. There are many factors that contribute to this problem, just as there are also many solutions that may help assuage it. The main reason why students from Detroit Public Schools are not enrolling in postsecondary education institutions has to do with their financial situation.

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

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.

Higher education in America is facing many challenges, i.e., low retention, low graduation rates and less funding. Postsecondary institutions are scrambling to remain a competitive entity within society. In order to do so, students must remain in school (Talbert, 2012). The Office of the White House states (2014), educational attainment is critical to our county’s economic success. In essence, the work force is creating more jobs requiring more education and a higher level of skill than was previously achieved. Individuals with only a high school diploma will not make into the middle class sector because of

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.

The idea of grit is to be used to help students improve on goals they’ve made, but in the The Downside of Grit by Alfie Kohn he would argue that somethings are better left alone instead of trying to pursue them and achieving them with little success. Kohn claims that grit can be counterproductive because anyone could be continuing something that doesn’t make them content with the outcome. He also discusses about how people with grit could experience issues with psychological health when you try over and over again and end up with continuous failure. It would be better to find an alternative pathway that would cause less stress, and end with success. Another argument that Kohn has is against the reliability of the research done on grit doesn’t rely on evidence. It

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

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.

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.