doggedness rather than talent

Grit is much in the news these days, testing our attention span.  How long will we pay attention?  Oh, yah, THAT idea again.  I've already grokked it.

Grit Rich.

That's the title of a blog entry by Deborah Barlow.

Deborah writes about creativity and innovation. Following creativity research is a part-time job, she says, and in that pursuit she regularly reads Maria Popova's site Brainpickings.  Popova wrote about Angela Duckworth and her research on grit, so Barlow passed it along.

That's how ideas spread and bump up against other ideas.

So I'm passing it along to you.

Check out Deborah Barlow.  And Maria Popova.  And Angela Duckworth. Again.

"...the secret of genius is doggedness rather than innate talent."

'Grit' earns MacArthur grant

Research psychologist and former math teacher Angela Duckworth has been awarded a MacArthur grant for her studies on the psychology of achievement.

Here's a teaser from this short interview:  "We discovered a somewhat surprising inverse relationship between grit and measures of talent, for example IQ test scores. Why don't people who are more able, who learn things more quickly, why don't they stick with things in the long run?"

And here's her TED talk, "Grit: the key to success."

 

Natural talent?

The Talent Code.

Talented Teenagers

From a review of a 1995 book by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi:

"The authors conclude that learning to invest, and wanting to invest, in challenging tasks is indispensable to skill development. It is also important to have a social environment wherein students enjoy emotional and material support from their families while taking more responsibility for their own learning, especially in the area of their talent, and finding enjoyment in doing so. None of these elements, however, was much in evidence in the teenagers' schools; instead, the schools appeared more interested in "covering cognitive ground" than engaging the interest of talented students.

Parents, teachers, psychologists and counselors will find concrete information about conditions that cultivate talent in both "gifted" and "regular" adolescents."


We need to make better schools. Not schools driven by high stakes testing. That simply amplifies the orientation to "cover cognitive ground".

What kind of schools do we need? Schools that understand how to cultivate talent in both "gifted" and "regular" adolescents.

This is why we have accepted the challenge to expand our program into the high school level -- not just another conventional high school -- a Montessori high school, a Post Oak high school.