Some background information
I had never heard anything about grit or the growth mindset before this week's ICT class. I have no idea if any of my high school teachers used any of these theories. They taught -somehow- and we paid attention and did our homework and learned because that's what was expected of us and not doing so was not an option. They probably did apply the general idea behind various theories and methods, even though some of them didn't have a name at the time.
When I heard about grit and the growth mindset my first thought was "Great! That sounds awesome!". A few seconds later, my train of thought reached the "Wait a minute!" stage.
What are grit and the growth mindset?
Angela Lee Duckworth defines grit as "passion and perseverance for very long-term goals". People who are gritty succeed when faced with difficult situations, whereas people who aren't gritty fail or give up.
As for the growth mindset, this idea was developed by Carol Dweck. She defines those who have a growth mindset as people who understand that "their abilities [can] grow through their hard work." People who don't think like that have a fixed mindset.
Can we really equate lack of success to lack of grit or hard work?
I will begin by saying that I haven't read any books about this topic. I've only watched some videos and looked up a few things to have more context. I don't doubt that the general idea of both grit and the growth mindset works. Everybody can grow and everybody has many long-term goals. Some are career or school-oriented and others are more personal and may even relate to hobbies. Everybody has something they're passionate about and want to achieve. Even children who are saving every euro they're given until they have enough to buy whatever percentage of the console they need to reach in order for their parents to get it for them have long-term goals. They could spend that money on something else, but they choose to reach that long-term goal. They are being gritty.
That said, I see several problems that neither woman mentioned: deadlines, situations beyond a person's control, lack of motivation and realistic worthy goals, etc. By the way, when I say worthy goals I mean goals that are worthy to each person. This last thing is key. Different people will have different worthy goals because different people will have different priorities.
Let's start with the growth mindset. It's a wonderful thing that people can learn new abilities through hard work. I doubt there's anyone who disagrees with this. Teaching students to work hard is a good thing. The problem is something we all face: deadlines. And I mean deadlines in a very broad sense. A paper has deadlines to hand it in, but exams are deadlines as well. They're deadlines for your learning. People don't always have an endless amount of time to learn things, unless those things are only related to hobbies. I do believe that failing the first exam of a class doesn't mean that a student can't pass at the end of the term, but hard work alone may not be the answer. It puts all the blame on the student if they don't succeed when there may be lots of other variables at play.
The idea of grit also has certain problems. Angela Lee Duckworth mentions several situations where only some people "succeeded". The thing is, did everyone else truly fail? Let's look at some of the examples she mentions, such as those rookie teachers working in very tough neighbourhoods. Did all those who left leave because they weren't gritty enough? We don't know, since the short video doesn't mention it, but I wonder how many of them had motivating students in very tough neighbourhoods as a long-term goal and how many were working there just because that was the school where they had found a job. Maybe some of those teachers who made it till the end of the school year were in dire need of money and couldn't afford to leave. Maybe some of those who left felt that their physical and mental well-being was in danger or already declining. We all have certain things we aren't willing to do or go through for whatever reason. We are not any less gritty for that. The same train of thought can be applied to the sales people. Those that left weren't necessarily less gritty. We don't know if their goal was sales or if that was just a job they had until they found something better. Of course, better understood as better from their point of view.
Grit and the growth mindset Vs. the real world
What I'm trying to say with this long ramble is that grit and the growth mindset on their own don't determine success. Focusing on what you can control is great, but people need to keep in mind that there are lots and lots of other factors involved that are beyond their control. One of them is just luck. We all hear wonderful stories of people who succeeded against all odds, but what we don't hear are the stories of all the other people who worked just as hard or maybe even harder, but, for example, never met the right person. This right here is the problem I see with both grit and the growth mindset. Do I think that perseverance and not giving up as soon as you reach a few set-backs are great things? Of course! I think everybody needs to learn to pick themselves up and to keep working if they don't succeed the very first time. However, the way these women word their ideas makes it sound as if all the people who didn't succeed were guilty of something. That it was somehow their fault. And that's unfortunately not always the case.
Instead, I'm in favour of a more balanced approach, where hard work and perseverance are encouraged and fostered, but wihout ignoring reality. People shouldn't feel that their lack of success is their fault if they haven't done anything wrong.
What do you think? Did grit ever help you when you were at school? Were you able to learn at a comfortable speed or did you feel that school was set on hard mode while your skills were still at easy mode? Feel free to let me know in the comments.
留言