Leadership magazine Sept/Oct 2016 V46 No 1 | Page 18

team found that “grit predicted completion
of the rigorous summer training program
better than any other predictor. Grit is an
individual personality trait capable of predicting long-term success.”
Applying this boot-camp mentalit y
to educating students, however, has met
with much resistance, conjuring a classroom image of “survival of the fittest,” with
teachers cast in the role of the bullying drill
sergeant and students playing the parts of
the defenseless cadets. Contrary to this
image, educators who support teaching grit
argue that it is more about gently nudging
students beyond their comfort zone and
providing them with opportunities to learn
from their failures.
According to ASCD author and leadership instructor Thomas Hoerr, “Teaching
grit can be difficult for educators because
the concept appears to run counter to the
caring school environments that we all
esteem.”
Grit’s critics argue it is a racially and culturally biased construct that disregards the
existence of white privilege and conveys

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Leadership

the message that students of color and low
socio-economic status (SES) simply must
try harder in order to succeed in school. Tyrone Howard, associate dean for equity and
inclusion at the University of California,
Los Angeles, argues that to expect marginalized students to exhibit grit without
addressing the larger societal issues “can be
irresponsible and unfair” (EWA seminar,
Nov. 11, 2015).
In other words, before we give credence
to the grittiness of individual students, we
must first acknowledge and address the inequities that exist in our society.

Support for perseverance
Recent studies identified a surprising
group of gritty individuals: high school
dropouts. Given the well documented
statistics indicating significantly higher
dropout rates for minority and low SES
students, one would expect to find these
students less gritty than their graduate
peers. In fact, the opposite is true.
A 2014 report from America’s Promise
Alliance, Center for Promise at Tufts Uni-

versity, revealed one of the key traits found
in individuals who dropped out of high
school is persistent resiliency in their daily
lives; “they are bouncing back, but need additional support to ‘reach up’ toward positive youth development.” Meaning, these
youths indeed have the desire to achieve
certain long-term goals, and the missing
ingredient is not grit, as evidenced by their
daily perseverance in the face of significant
life challenges.
What many of these students do lack is
a support system to meet their social and
emotional needs and keep them motivated
and engaged in school and beyond; something policymakers are beginning to take
notice of.
U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, who advocated
for social-emotional learning in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act
reauthorization, said “Social and emotional
competencies aren’t ‘soft skills.’ They are
the foundation for all other skills. If we
want a tolerant society… we need to teach
the skills that create that society – the social and emotional (skills).”
Another example that contradicts collective thought as to why some students succeed and others don’t is the Knowledge is
Power Program (KIPP) school model, examined in Paul Tough’s 2012 book, “How
Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the
Hidden Power of Character.” In a nutshell,
the KIPP middle school model began in
1999 as somewhat of a social experiment,
and initial results left the founders baffled
and disappointed.
Tough writes that the plan was to take
a group of 38 eighth-grade, low SES,
inner city students of color, and “…transform them from typical underperforming
Bronx-public-school students into collegebound scholars.” This would be achieved
by providing them the utmost in academic
rigor, with high expectations and all the
academic support imaginable.
According to K IPP ’s achievement
scores, the model was working. However,
history would prove there was something
missing. Although the vast majority of students made it to co llege, that’s where it all
fell apart. Only “21 percent of the cohort –
eight students (of the 38) – had completed