Grit. The word, reintroduced by Angela Duckworth’s 2013 TedTalk The Key to Success? Grit, may simply be described as the willingness to persist despite failure. Inspired by Carol Dweck’s work on the growth mindset, Angela along with many more educational researchers, are focusing in on what it is that makes humans want to persevere. But David Hochheiser in his blog Growth Mindset: A Driving Philosophy, Not Just a Tool points out the danger of looking at grit and growth mindset as something that educators can use as a tool or method to apply and cautions that “those who use growth mindset as pedagogy fail to dignify the lives and experiences of the students, who often show plenty of grit and perseverance in their home lives, much less their managing to make it through time in school where they're considered unsuccessful.” This was a point that resonated with me. My last 12 years working in the Alternate Education setting has made it more than poignantly clear to me how badly the “system” is in general, honouring students in their struggles in life.
A second point that Hochhleiser makes is “that, although there are examples of growth as a valued indicator of success, too often we still use a limited view of achievement as our measure of success.” This brings me to a conversation I had with my 13 year old son after he watched Avi’s HIM video (found on Week 2’s Announcement page) with me. My son’s immediate response was that all students, of any age should be given more opportunities to participate in a gamified environment. He proceeded promptly to justify his statement and went onto to not only provide course design recommendations but included student incentive ideas as well, all of which I recorded as a voice memo (with his permission of course).
Hochhleiser also reminded me of DuFour and Eaker’s new mindset - for everyone - outlined in their book Professional Learning Communities at Work that would include:
The audio file of my musings about these questions and more can be found at my Alternate Actions Podcast Series.
A second point that Hochhleiser makes is “that, although there are examples of growth as a valued indicator of success, too often we still use a limited view of achievement as our measure of success.” This brings me to a conversation I had with my 13 year old son after he watched Avi’s HIM video (found on Week 2’s Announcement page) with me. My son’s immediate response was that all students, of any age should be given more opportunities to participate in a gamified environment. He proceeded promptly to justify his statement and went onto to not only provide course design recommendations but included student incentive ideas as well, all of which I recorded as a voice memo (with his permission of course).
Hochhleiser also reminded me of DuFour and Eaker’s new mindset - for everyone - outlined in their book Professional Learning Communities at Work that would include:
- Being humble enough to accept that there are things about ourselves and our practices that can improve
- Becoming part of professional teams that value constructive critique instead of criticism
- Treating setbacks as formative struggles within the learning process instead of summative failures
- Realizing the restrictive role that timelines can play in reaching high standards, and using foundational philosophies such as Universal Design for Learning (UDL) to map systems so that everyone's growth is supported
- Create flexible grouping at all times so that nobody's trapped in any one course level or particular type of work.
The audio file of my musings about these questions and more can be found at my Alternate Actions Podcast Series.