exis Hanson Professor Dosch English 101 3 May 2016 title In “The Downside of ‘Grit’: What Really Happens When Kids Are Pushed to Be More Persistent?”, Alfie Kohn; an author and lecturer, claims that not everything is worthwhile especially when going at a task for an extensive amount of time. He asserts that ‘grit’ (the passion and determination when pursuing long term goals) is becoming less persuasive and credible. Kohn states that grit can cause serious issues that have real consequences. Important goals about life have changed significantly suggests Kohn. With goals comes the ability to be persistent, the author mentions. He describes that persistence is one characteristic among many that could become valuable when wanting to reach a goal, …show more content…
Though Kohn’s point about “larger policies and institutions” sheds light upon a significant issue such as poverty, his sarcastic tone weakens the argument (par. 22). He does not go further in depth on why tools that help with poverty are more significant than grit. By Kohn lacking explanation, he causes the clarity of his view to be questionable. Kohn only attacks Tough’s statement, “Really? No antipoverty tool- presumably including Medicaid and public housing- is more valuable than an effort to train poor kids to persist at whatever they’re told to do” (par.23). As this is Kohn’s only response to Tough, it requires more than sarcastic questioning to deliver a clear message on his own thoughts. Kohn comes off a bit non-academic. As authors Pedro A. Noguera and Anindya Kundu explain in their article “Why Students Need More Than ‘Grit’”, that this concept of grit is forgetting about other components that can affect academic achievement. The authors mention Miguel Fernandez, a fresh graduate from a small high school who has had struggles that have affected his opportunities to go off to college. These struggles include financial hardships and also that Miguel “was undocumented and in the country illegally” (Noguera and Kundu par.8). Though Miguel …show more content…
He claims “even if you don’t crash and burn by staying the course, you may not fare nearly as well as if you had stopped, reassessed, and tried something else” (Kohn par.10). Kohn’s mentioning of one’s mental and psychological health makes for a convincing case that grit can become unhealthy, if there are not any benefits behind the problem that is being continued with. The positive outcomes need to outweigh the negative. The author declares “to know when to pull the plug requires the capacity to adopt a long term perspective. Continuing to do what you’ve been doing often represents the path of least resistance, so it can take guts to cut your losses” (Kohn par.13). Kohn’s declaration is an important lesson to be aware of. Knowing when to stop can be difficult, especially if one has been going at a task for a long time; however, also knowing what is best for oneself will help in one’s overall well-being. A time where I have had to stop and think about what is best, has happened to myself in the past. I had to move up to the Lacey area from Grays Harbor County. I was in a town that did not have much going on, not in the way that there was nothing fun to do but more so in a way that in the long run would not be that beneficial to myself. My future as in graduating, opportunities, and going to college were becoming limited in my eyes. In knowing that was the best decision to move, I have
It starts with Courage which is describes as the ability of doing something that scare you everyday. The article states that they should stop being coddling and has to faced their failure so that they can learn from it and stand up so that they can go forward. The next point is the conscientiousness which is the main key because it is the ability of taking responsible and the conscience of doing what's right and importance. With conscientiousness in the human being character is describes as the big five such as being an open minded, agree with what is right, be conscience and make right decisions to achieve the work needed. Long term goals and endurance will bring you to your goals because it's the base of your work. Without it we can not make it to the end game. The more you have resilience and Optimism , the more you work harder. Your objectif, your surrounding your positives and negatives aspects of life give you Grit. It helps you to understand better what placed those. The role Grit play in your life and in our world of today. Just like it says in the article “ Optimism+confidence+creativity= Resilience =Hardiness=(+/-) Grit. The last point not the least, excellence vs perfection’ first of all nobody is perfect but as human we try to work hard so that we can make it to Excellency which guide us to the endgame. But a grittiest person is someone who doesn’t look for excellency only but work hard to meet perfection just like in a soccer game or an athletics sport. As an example, in a soccer team, there is always one soccer player that everyone love and want his team to win, so to do so all the team need to have Grit and be more gritteir than the other team to win.In addition, the article of Margaret Perlis and professor Duckworth about Grit can be benefit to college students because it can help them to make better decisions, to be able to have an object and to be grittier about what they want. They
By building grit, people will be able to achieve their long time academic goals for either their school year or school career. Everyone have heard students use the excuses that teachers don’t teach the subject or some lame excuse such as that. Angela Lee Duckworth, who has studied the power of grit for eleven years and also once was a seventh grade teacher, said that every student could learn if they work hard enough. In making this comment, Angela Lee urges students to actually pay attention in their classes, do their homework til we actually understand the material, and just plain and simple work harder in the classroom. Once you don’t quit
There are lots of examples of this in the book but here is a good example from Mawi when he ran track. “That summer, I would run at least six days a week and lift weights every other day. I did it, working during the day and training at night. Again, my hard work paid big dividends … I earned all-conference honors.” (115). Mawi joined the high school track and field team. During his sophomore and junior years, Mawi only made marginal progress. He wanted to change that. Mawi knew from his father that if you work hard, you will succeed. As you can see by this quote, Mawi did as his father said and no doubt, he succeeded in getting all-conference honors. Persisting is not just in sports, however, Mawi also worked hard at school. He recalls, “I stayed up night after night, rereading the chapters and reviewing my notes. I would get home from sports at 6 p.m., eat, help out around the house, and study until midnight. Then I would get up at 6 a.m. and do it all over again. The hard work paid off. I often got the highest grade in the class.” (112). As you can see, Mawi also worked hard at school. Mawi took an advanced us history class. He knew that by working hard and persisting, he could get the highest grade in the class. Mawi spent 6 hours studying and reviewing his work. He was committed to earning the highest grade in his class and his hard work paid off. Working hard and persisting is a valuable lesson to learn because it produces positive results. Also, it does not matter whether you are running track or studying for a test, if you work hard at anything and set your mind to it, you will achieve your
Teaching children motivational skills and good learning techniques at a very young age can have a massive positive impact on how successful those children would be in their future. In the nonfiction article Kewauna’s Ambition, the author explains that her success came from her own self motivation, and the help from an organization that helps troubled kids. The author states “what was most remarkable to me about kewauna was that she was able to marshal her prodigious non cognitive capacity - call it grit, conscientiousness, resilience, or the ability to delay gratification.” (Tough, 2015). He relates the experience and resilience of Kewauna to other teenagers who share the same experience. Many also believe that motivation and willingness to learn is taught by parents, teachers, and peers. The success of students does not solely depend on the school 's ability to provide programs and help, but the ambition of the student alone. In contrast, those methods of teaching skills at a young age don’t always have a lasting effect on the children throughout their entire academic career. At a young age, students may have that extreme motivation of never failing throughout their life and when they get older, that desire to keep succeeding is gone. The overconfidence of possessing high learning abilities could affect the students negatively as they grow older.
Dr. Angela Duckworth’s studies are flawed and provide inaccurate data to the public, which may or may not be an oversight. This quote, by assistant professor of psychology Marcus Crede in his papers, evokes how easily Angela Duckworth can manipulate the masses. ‘98% of the grittiest candidates made it through’ West Point, and many of the students at West Point are top-achievers, with an average graduation rate of 95%. Grit isn’t a skill, as argued by Marcus Crede, it is a trait known as conscientiousness. His argument is that grit is simply ‘old wine in new bottles’. He has gathered from studies that conscientiousness is essentially the same as grit, but simply put forwards in a different way. Grit scores and conscientiousness scores are breathtakingly
“Grit is doing what you don’t want to do, to be what you want to be.”~(Dea Irby, odeame.com) That is what grit means. But, to some people, grit means just standing up to get to one’s goal. Grit really involves making sacrifices, never giving up, and standing ground to get to the future that is desired. Grit is important to achieving one’s future. It can help someone pull through the difficult parts of life, to get to their goal. Grit is what can keep people going to get the things they want to focus on, without grit, many people would have abandoned their dreams.
Determination is everywhere and comes in all forms. When striving people have the life skill, they get a sense of rewards at the end, and a life lesson that will let them ac...
In Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance book, Angela Duckworth shows how grit describes passion and perseverance and identifies high achievers, and why talent isn't as essential as a great many people think. As in the book it explains that Passion is the consistency of objectives held over drawn out stretches of time. Perseverance is the capability to conquer problems and complete what you have started. Angela Duckworth explains in equation of as effort counts twice as in talent x effort= skill in which skill x effort= achievement in which it means the more you put effort the more your skills increase and more you can achieve. They are four components to grit: interest, practice, purpose and hope.
First, having grit and a growth mindset will help you in academics because having grit will push you to become more courageous in being great in any subject you have or take. Also it will help with having a growth mindset because you know that if were to fail a test you will try harder and not bring yourself down which is a fixed mindset. I believe with having grit and growth mindset you will become the best that you believe you can be and you will succeed in life. If you don’t have grit or a growth mindset you won’t become something amazing and you will think for the rest of your life that i can't do it or you will give up and you don’t want that to happen. Like Ms.Duckworth says” think about changes that are possible to make in your life”. Which leads us to personal life.
When a person has a high level of motivation they are more likely to be successful and strive for what they want. You don’t only need motivation from yourself but from other people too. But one thing, never depend on other people to make you happy and successful. Another way that grit is shown is by having hope. When you have hope you push yourself till you get what you want.
Grit is a non-cognitive trait that is, as Angela Duckworth describes, “sticking with things over the very long term until you master them.”(Hanford) Some people believe that grit is more important than intelligence. Angela Duckworth, an assistant psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, wanted to know, “What is the role of effort in a person’s success?” She has done a lot of research at many different places such as Ivy League schools, the United States Military Academy, and the Scripps National Spelling Bee. She found that the grittiest individuals achieved more, not because they were smarter, but because they knew what their goal was and worked hard to reach it. For example, when Duckworth did research at Ivy League schools,
Grit as defined by Google is “courage and resolve; strength of character.”. I learned this word and definition last year in AP psychology, a class itself that required quite a bit of it. While i only just learned about the word last year it's something i have had a much longer history of. My first experience with grit in school dates back to when i was in 5th grade. What does a 5th grader even need to show grit for? Without telling my entire life story i'll explain, my entire 4th grade year was spent with a teacher that didn't do much teaching. So when i got into 5th grade i was far behind the other students. Not even 2 days into the school year i decided that this year i would do the absolute best i could. I worked as hard as i could that
Some of the students that don't have grit will give up so easily and don’t want to try again. When they fail their classes, they will feel like a failure or embarrassment and they will drop out at school. It is hard to keep or get a job because if some them will quit at that, they will quit at everything else. They are in a habit of doing something new and then quit when it’s get hard enough.
I've never been naturally smart and have always had to try twice as hard to be half as good of a student. But at the same time, I’ve always been tougher on myself than anyone else. Some classes were a struggle for me and there were moments that I wish I could’ve just walked right out the doors of the school. Through my experiences, I learned that hard work is not something that one can practice but instead it’s something that’s already inside of people. Some may not know the potential that they have inside of them, and how it can affect their life in a way that they never knew possible. Hard work is someone taking the passion that they have inside for something they want to succeed in and turning it into action to benefit
Even when feeling overwhelmed with school and work, I continued to push towards my goals and this persistence has paid off. Motivation is essential to being persistent, so I consistently called upon my internal motivation to help give me the attitude I needed to succeed. Internal motivation is powerful since it comes from one’s own thoughts and one does not need to rely on outside sources. My internal motivation was envisioning a better future for my family and knowing that persistence is essential to achieve that goal means they are both together essential.