Analysis Of Angela Lee Duckworth's 'The Key To Success?'

In “The key to success? Grit,” the speaker Angela Lee Duckworth argues that “grit” is a better indicator of success among students and adults in achieving long term goals rather than IQ. How in the education system IQ is measured to determine success, but in order to gain a better understanding of students and learning success should be determined from a motivational perspective.

As a seventh grade teacher, she began to notice how IQ among her students was not the only difference between her strongest and weakest students. She claims that some of her best students did not have extremely high IQ’s but also how some of her smartest students weren’t performing as well as they should be due to their IQ. Angela then began to question how that was possible and came to the conclusion that being successful not only academically but in life as well depends on much more than intelligence. So Duckworth left teaching behind and went on to graduate school to become a psychologist studying both students and adults in various challenging settings. Throughout her study Angela would ask who is successful and why? As a result, her and her research team found that social intelligence in fact was not a compelling predictor of success but grit.

Angela then goes on to explain that grit is passion and perseverance to

achieve long-term goals. In other words, grit is having stamina. It is your exceptional motivation and discipline to achieve these goals, no matter the challenges or failures you face, can lead to success. For example, Angela began to study grit in Chicago public schools where she asked thousands of high school juniors to take grit questionnaires and then waited a year to see which of those students would graduate. In her study she found that the student who showed more grit were indeed more likely graduate despite factors such as family income, standardized achievement test scores , or how safe they felt at school. Duckworth’s findings proved how effective one’s grit can be in order to achieve success.
Duckworth reports however, how the public lacks knowledge on grit, how little science knows, and the lack of knowing how to build grit.

However, Duckworth does state the best idea she has heard on building grit in kids was proposed by Carol Dweck at Stanford University which she has termed “growth mindset.” According to Carol, growth mindset is the belief that the ability to learn is not established and can be changed with the amount of effort you put in. Her findings go on to show that when kids learn about the brain and how it changes and grows when facing challenges, their willingness to overcome failure is much stronger because they know their failure is not

final.
In order to learn how to build grit we need to get rid of the notion that students with higher IQ’s are the ones that will excel in life and academics. We must all educate ourselves on what grit is to help our children in the long term. And finally, we must instill the value of determination despite failure and hardships to achieve success in our children at a young age.