How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity and the Hidden Power of Character

Paul Tough

Book Notes

Dr. Bob Jarvis January 2014

Who succeeds and who fails?

Why do some children thrive while others lose their way?

What can any of us do to steer an individual child- or a whole generation of children- away from failure and toward success?

What role do character traits of persistence. Self-control, curiosity, conscientiousness, grit, self-confidence play in student success?

Chapter 1 How to Fail (And How Not To)

Paul Vallas and Arne Duncan’s failure to transform/turnaround Fenger HS in Chicago

“you can’t expect to solve the problems of the school without taking into account what’s happening in the community”

“can’t discount questions of “what families do kids come from?...

What effect does poverty have on children?”…effects of chronic stress?

Executive functions-prefrontal cortex: emotional and cognitive self-regulation…

impulse control/concentration/ability to rebound from disappointment/working memory…

potential vehicle for closing the gaps…highly correlated with family income…

skills not only highly correlated with success, but quite malleable, much more than other cognitive skills!

Effective anecdote to ill effects of early stress-close and nurturing adult relationships-maternal “licking and grooming”-biggest negative effects of mothers were inattentive or unresponsive to child’s distress

Attachment theory: parents who respond most sensitively to emotional needs create secure place to explore the world and more self-reliant and independent children….and early attachment classification is not destiny

Parents can overcome their own trauma histories and poor attachments…Building inner strength and resilience of parents or creating substitute or supplemental family structures

Chapter 2 How to Build Character

David Levin- Kipp Academy

Graduates struggle in college; Academic preparation but not social-emotional-psychological preparation

Difficulty with independence coming from highly controlled world of Kipp

What was missing? Optimism, resilience, social agility

Levin asked key questions:

Why do some of our students feel not liked/not valued/not believed in?

Why do some of our parents feel belittled/disrespected/spoken down to?

How do we continue to develop the spirit and character of our students without breaking them?

Martin Seligman- “Learned Optimism” 2002

Character Strengths and Virtues valued across societies and time

Reliable path to the “good life”- focus on personal growth and achievement vs. morality

All malleable- skills you can learn, practice and teach

Traditional Moral Traits: Bravery, Citizenship, Fairness, Wisdom, Integrity,

Emotional Realm: Love, Humor, Zest, appreciation of beauty

Day to Day Human Interactions: Social Intelligence (recognize interpersonal dynamics and adapt quickly to different social situations), Kindness, Gratitude

Most traditional character education programs not impactful on behavior, achievement or school culture! Why?????

Creating a better story about why good and bad things happen to you

Pessimist: negative events are permanent, pervasive and personal

Optimist: looks for limited and short-term explanations

Angela Duckworth- GRIT

Self-discipline better predictors of achievement than IQ

Will power, resisting temptation, delaying gratification

Challenge of pursing long-term intangible goals

Motivation vs. volition (will power and self-control)

Problem with trying to motivate people- no one knows how to do it well!

Different personality types respond differently to external attempts at motivating

Material incentives don’t work well or only in the short term!

Effort: motivation for trying hard even when there is not an external reward for doing it

GRIT: “passionate commitment to a single mission and an unswerving dedication to achieve that mission”

Teachers quandary: you are convinced your students are smarter than they appear, and you know that if only they would apply themselves, they would do much better---how do you get them to apply themselves????

Brent Roberts: CONSCIENTIOUSNESS

Personality Big Five Dimensions: Agreeableness, extraversion, neuroticism, openness to experience best predict workplace success

High Conscientious= orderly, hardworking, reliable, respectful of social norms downsides… low creativity, independence

No inherent downsides to “self-control”?

Chris Peterson: 7 KEY STRENGTHS

Grit, Self-Control, Zest, Social Intelligence, Gratitude, Optimism, Curiosity

Can character strengths be weaknesses?

Randolph at Riverdale Country School

“Kids that have it easy are set up for long term failure”- difficulty dealing with difficulties and setbacks

Challenges of growing up in affluence: Excessive achievement pressures, physical and emotional isolation from parents, anxiety/depression/substance abuse

Best way to build character is to attempt something when there is a serious possibility of failure!

“Ultimate product of good character is a happy, meaningful and productive life”

Duckworth: It’s not that some kids are good and others are bad, but that some kids have good habits and some have bad habits…and that can change.

Gabriele Oettingen- MCII (Mental Contrasting With Implementation Intentions)

People use three strategies when setting goals

1. Optimists favor indulging: imagining the future they would like to achieve and vividly envisioning all the good things that will go along with it- praise, self-satisfaction and future success

2. Pessimists favor dwelling: thinking about all the things that will get in the way 3. Mental contrasters do both simultaneously and set rules for themselves: develop

implementation intentions--- if/then statements

Claude Steele and Josh Aronson: GROUP IDENTITY AND STEREOTYPE THREAT

When you are worried about confirming a stereotype about your group (race, gender, age, perceived intelligence) you get anxious, and as a result, do worse.

Carol Dweck: MINDSET

Regardless of the facts on the malleability of intelligence, students do much better academically if they believe intelligence is malleable!

Fixed Mindset: Intelligence and other skills are essentially static and inborn… they don't like challenge, they fear failure so will not take risks and they like easy tasks (and lots of praise for doing them well!).

Growth Mindset: Intelligence can be improved… they are not afraid of challenge, they welcome feedback and they react to failure by trying harder

To be more successful poor or under-resourced kids who don’t have the social safety nets of their wealthier peers need more grit, more social intelligence and more self-control to “succeed”

Use character report cards? Advantages and disadvantages?

Chapter 3 How to Think

IQ and Chess: Intermediate School 318 in Brooklyn and Teacher, Elizabeth Spiegel

The most important talents in chess are not intellectual, but psychological and emotional.

Cognitive flexibility and self-control (inhibit instinctive or habitual response)

Be able to see alternative solutions to problems/think outside the box/negotiate unfamiliar situations

Go over mistakes and get to the bottom of why you made them

Take responsibility for mistakes and earn from them without obsessing

If you are trying to change character then conveying information is not enough: subject students to rigorous self-analysis:

“Middle school students don’t need “licking and grooming” attention, but rather the unexpected experience of someone taking them seriously, believing in their abilities and challenging them to improve themselves”

Malcolm Gladwell: OUTLIERS

10,000 hours of deliberate practice to truly master any skill

Children need to find their passion- case for and against single-minded devotion

Spiegel: “I think it’s liberating for kids to understand what it’s like to be passionate about something… They are having momentous experiences that they’ll always remember. I think the worst thing is you look back on your childhood and it’s one blur of sitting in class and being bored and coming home and watching TV. At least when the kids on the chess team look back, they’ll have the nationals to remember, or one great game they played, or the moment they were full of adrenaline and trying their hardest”

Notion of flow: “when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult or worthwhile”

James Black’s story: a tale of unfulfilled potential…national chess master- first under age of 15… possessed “keen: intelligence” and a case study in grit, yet always scored below average on sate standardized test…Spiegel daunted by how much he didn’t know in academic subjects…couldn’t pass selective HS admissions test, like SAT that reflects knowledge and skills accrued over the years, most of which is absorbed invisibly throughout childhood from one’s family and culture…

Chapter 4 How to Succeed

The College Conundrum: College completion, not access is the issue when the value of the college degree has skyrocketed…our US drop in college grads relative to international

William Bowen- Crossing the Finish Line: Completing College in American Universities

College dropout phenomenon explained as a problem of excessive and unrealistic ambition on the part of many students, especially low income…found just opposite that low income students were “underreaching” and attending schools below what GPA and SAT/ACT test score qualified them for….did not affect high income students in same way.

The most accurate predictor of successful college completion was not SAT or ACT score but rather HS GPA- no matter where they attended HS!...Duckworth found that MS and HS GPA were best predicted by self-control. High grades “reveal much more than mastery of content. They reveal qualities of motivation and perseverance- as well as the presence of good study habits and time management skills”

Jeff Nelson- OneGoal program in Chicago

roadmap to college…study skills, work habits, time management, help-seeking behavior, social and academic problem-solving skills AND leadership abilities of resourcefulness, resilience, ambition, professionalism and integrity

Chapter 5 A Better Path

Tough’s self-reflection on dropping out of college/leaving jobs

Finding success in failure…Should I do something I’m good at or something I love? Take a chance or play it safe?

On raising his son- high licking and grooming parenting

“Development of character depends on all sorts of mysterious interactions among culture and family and genes and free will and fate”

“Beyond love and hugs he needed discipline, rules, limits: someone to say no…and what he need more than anything was some child-sized adversity, a chance to fall down and get back up on his own, without help.”

The merger of poverty and education debates- the achievement gaps- that effective schooling could mitigate impact of poverty…charters, vouchers, teacher quality, value-added…

“You start thinking that the only important question is how do we improve teacher quality?, when that is just a small part of a much broader and more profound question: What can we a as a country do to significantly improve the life chances of millions of poor children?”

We underestimate the numbers of children impacted by poverty, extreme poverty and working class families on the edge.