Last week I had the good fortune to attend Mountain View Elementary School’s Soaring Eagles Luncheon. This is a monthly event that recognizes students who have exemplified the following character traits: hard working, respectful, helpful and kind. The students eat pizza, receive a certificate, get their picture taken and then return to class with a smile on their face. I am thrilled that the school pauses to do this and assume that the unspoken intention of this recognition is to help develop perseverance. While it is equally important to recognize our students’ academic achievement, research shows that those students who do not get straight A’s but have what one researcher labels as grit, are as likely to succeed as those at the top of the class.
Developing our students’ ability to persevere is an expected part of school. I recently read of a survey (see below) that can help guide this quest. While the survey is designed for older students, it could easily be altered for our own. Its questions help determine the relative degree of a students’ character, strengths and aspects of happiness. A positive score on the survey suggests an inner resolve that will help students find success when faced with challenges. Developing our students’ ability to persevere when confronted with an adversity is something that we all support. Thanks to Mountain View Elementary and our other schools for giving attention to this aspect of character development.
Duckworth, A.L, & Quinn, P.D. (2009). Development and validation of the Short Grit Scale (Grit-S). Journal of Personality Assessment, 91, 166-174.
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~duckwort/images/Duckworth%20and%20Quinn.pdf
One Comment
Nice post Dr. Atwater. If you haven’t read it already, I highly recommend the book by Paul Tough: How Children Succeed – Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character. This American Life did a nice episode on the book in the fall that is worth a listen too: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/474/back-to-school