I just found an article that my dad sent to me back in February. It came from the Mensa Bulletin, which will completely cast a whole ironic shade on the topic: Grit. Lisa Van Gemert discusses how being smart isn't good enough to succeed, rather, it takes some amount of grit, as defined by researcher Angela Duckworth at the University of Pennsylvania. Grit is a "perseverance and passion for long-term goals." It's this idea that to get really good at something, you put in the 10,000 hours in 10 years, and you may not necessarily enjoy it all the time, but you are there doing "structured, feedback-driven, weakness-focused work, specifically designed to improve performance."
To help children develop grit:
- set challenging yet achievable goals
- allow children to set their own goals (which seems a little at odds with the wording of the previous recommendation)
- transfer skills from one area of grittiness to another
- recognize that obsession is not necessarily grit
- share stories of gritty individuals
Taking this on a personal note, I have to say that I completely admire the grit that my husband has. He has worked so hard academically to achieve so much, and he continues to work hard to achieve much in his field of medicine. I am in awe of how much dedication he has to what he does.
To share another story of gritty individuals, I just finished the book Zoya's Story about a woman named Zoya (of course that is not her real name) from Afghanistan who has become one of the leaders of RAWA, an organization that promotes gender equality. She tells her story of growing up in Afghanistan and then fleeing to Pakistan, where she was educated. She discusses how she continues to fight for her cause and for the women and children of Afghanistan, despite all the troubles. I cannot even imagine having that much personal strength.
Here's to us all getting a little grittier~
To help children develop grit:
- set challenging yet achievable goals
- allow children to set their own goals (which seems a little at odds with the wording of the previous recommendation)
- transfer skills from one area of grittiness to another
- recognize that obsession is not necessarily grit
- share stories of gritty individuals
Taking this on a personal note, I have to say that I completely admire the grit that my husband has. He has worked so hard academically to achieve so much, and he continues to work hard to achieve much in his field of medicine. I am in awe of how much dedication he has to what he does.
To share another story of gritty individuals, I just finished the book Zoya's Story about a woman named Zoya (of course that is not her real name) from Afghanistan who has become one of the leaders of RAWA, an organization that promotes gender equality. She tells her story of growing up in Afghanistan and then fleeing to Pakistan, where she was educated. She discusses how she continues to fight for her cause and for the women and children of Afghanistan, despite all the troubles. I cannot even imagine having that much personal strength.
Here's to us all getting a little grittier~
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