Content Of Their Character: Grit et al
Posted: January 13th, 2013 | Author: Michael Goldstein | | 9 Comments »
My review of 2 new books, one by Scott Seider and the other by Paul Tough, is up at Commonwealth Magazine.
AS A THOUGHT experiment, imagine you’re magically “shaping” a high school senior. You’re lucky. Her starting point is that she’s at the 80th percentile in both IQ and “character”—a composite measure of traits like grit, tenacity, and optimism. You can increase either variable, but only by lowering the other variable by the same amount. For example, you could “shape” her into a kid who is in the 90th percentile in IQ but 70th percentile in character. Or vice versa.
Where would you set the dial? Which variable matters more in generating success?
Click here to read the whole thing.
I’m going to hear Angela Duckworth, whose work is featured in Tough’s book, later this week.
Angela Duckworth came and spoke at the SEED Summit at the beginning of the year. She was really impressive (and funny!)
Before explicit teaching come modeling, expectations, and reinforcing the character traits that you want to encourage. Learning can only be accomplished by preaching to a very limited extent. Even when the learning is more student-directed, character traits can end up being given a lot of lip service and much less serious commitment. I’m guessing that’s at least one reason why the externally-applied character development curricula don’t do well.
The obvious answer to questions about character or academics is, “Both!” In all seriousness, I’m not sure how you go about fully disentangling the two.
I’m not wholly against character education. I think my problem is that I’ve yet to hear about it being done particularly well. Often, when character education is made explicit, it becomes a launching pad for sermonizing rather than engaging in substantive discussions between students and teachers. Even when teachers supposedly talk “with” students in character education classes, the conversations’ seem to assume a deterministic quality in which the problems posed are also solved by the values du jour. I’ve been part of plenty of character ed conversations where students were simply not buying what we (the teachers) were selling. My hunch is that character education didn’t pass the smell test because the advice given came off as canned and seemingly impersonal.
As a wiser teacher than me has told me, she taught character through the books she read with the class, through the discussions they had about the choices characters made, the consequences for their actions, and the ways in which the story intersected with their own lives. When not guided by overriding dogma about who kids “are” and what they necessarily “should be,” that kind of teaching might even pass students’ smell test. It’s not just English teachers who do this sort of “natural” character education, either. A great math teacher is a model for modeling diligence, method, analysis, and error correction. A great history teacher connects the past to present and helps show students how to construct meaning and situate themselves in larger issues shaping society. In other words, school subjects, by design, make kinds of people already.
If I were a principal, I’d worry less about character education as an explicit instructional goal than I would hiring inspiring people you’d want teaching your own kids. I think if you start from there, a lot of our concerns we’re calling “character education” would begin to fall into place.
Thanks Steve. We need a little more humor in this biz.
“Historically” I’ve tended to lean towards EB and CK above. I’ve mostly been heavily tilted towards “model character” versus “talk about character.”
I’ve seen many flops with “advisory” that kids describe as pointless and which doesn’t pass the eyeball test. And flops in other behavior-change domains, like anti-drug-use education, that haven’t worked in carefully measured trials.
Seider’s book, combined with some discussions I’ve had with teachers, have made me rethink a bit. As well as having young kids.
If I was a 90 out of 100 on “model it,” perhaps now I’m more of a 75.
FYI Angela Duckworth was one of the cofounders of Summerbridge Cambridge now known as Breakthrough Greater Boston. http://www.breakthroughcambridge.org/Angela-Duckworth.htm
Most explicit character education is a lot like diet and exercise. It works if you can make yourself do it. But it’s a LOT easier to talk about than it is to do.
I’m on the model side with Chris K — teachers using what’s read and what’s accomplished is likely most valuable. It may have to be somewhat explicit — but also more personalized. That is, pointing out to someone when their increase in effort pays off many days later. Drawing comparisons between real life situations (including current events and television programming and movies) and character’s from books — what were the choices that led to the downfall or the success?
“That’s the rub. Beyond IQ and character, there is knowledge. IQ affects the rate at which we develop knowledge; and character affects our willingness to devote the time needed to pursue knowledge. ”
This is the rub, for sure! In the Tough book, I found the most telling chapter to be the one about the chess program — and its fairly quick success — compared to that same teacher’s attempt to get the one kid up to speed over the course of a year to go to one of the competitive high schools.
While chess is a complex game, it’s still just a game with one set of rules. Trying to catch up on years of knowledge and cultural awareness turns out to be a far harder task.
And what was missing, she realized, was so much of the knowledge that your kids are going to pick up virtually without effort on your parts. They show an interest in something and you don’t need to buy flashcards, but you will ask at the library and find extra books on it, both fiction and non-fiction. They’ll hear NPR and snippets of stories so that when they hear those words or ideas in the context of schooling, they’ll have ‘ah ha!” moments. They’ll see grown-ups who ask questions and argue about things and who follow up by looking up information to settle it.
And those are all the things that are so hard to instill into a classroom full of kids. While hard work and grit will push some of those kids to really excel, lecturing about hard work and grit and chanting slogans (sorry, just a personal pet peeve of this non- group-joiner type) does not and cannot make up for knowledge.
Mike,
I’m heading up to CrossRoads Academy in Lyme, NH in a few weeks.
They use a program called Core Virtues that was designed in-house (but you can buy the book on Amazon) http://www.corevirtues.net/index.html
It starts in kindergarten, cycles through to 8th grade, with readings 3x per week, tied to a particular theme. I look forward to reporting back to you.
and sorry I could not resist adding this topical quote from a guy who studied for a spell in your town:
Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction.
The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically.But …[w]e must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character–that is the goal of true education.
MLK, 1947