Posted on 12/26/2024 4:35:42 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
After 20 years of teaching, I thought I’d heard every argument in the book from students who wanted a better grade. But recently, at the end of a weeklong course with a light workload, multiple students had a new complaint: “My grade doesn’t reflect the effort I put into this course.”
High marks are for excellence, not grit. In the past, students understood that hard work was not sufficient; an A required great work. Yet today, many students expect to be rewarded for the quantity of their effort rather than the quality of their knowledge. In surveys, two-thirds of college students say that “trying hard” should be a factor in their grades, and a third think they should get at least a B just for showing up at (most) classes.
This isn’t Gen Z’s fault. It’s the result of a misunderstanding about one of the most popular educational theories.
More than a generation ago, the psychologist Carol Dweck published groundbreaking experiments that changed how many parents and teachers talk to kids. Praising kids for their abilities undermined their resilience, making them more likely to get discouraged or give up when they encountered setbacks. They developed what came to be known as a fixed mind-set: They thought that success depended on innate talent and that they didn’t have the right stuff. To persist and learn in the face of challenges, kids needed to believe that skills are malleable. And the best way to nurture this growth mind-set was to shift from praising intelligence to praising effort.
The idea of lauding persistence quickly made its way into viral articles, best-selling books and popular TED talks...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Another broken clock moment for the NYT.
Tomorrow they’ll go right back to blaming structural racism for differences in educational outcomes.
Me? I always put forth TONS of effort to learn higher level math. The best way to describe it, is that there is a fog that I simply cannot get thru at a certain point. It wasn’t for lack of trying. I simply cannot do math beyond pre-calculus.
Kids these days seems like they believe effort is trying for an hour every now and then and expecting to be rewarded for it. I tried my behind off, and got rewarded with an absolutely needed C, and was thankful for it.
Just damn. We really are doomed....
30 years of participation trophies does that to people.
Isn’t it too deeply embedded in our culture for us to change it now?
Bottom line not everybody is “smart”.
Everybody has talents and can learn skills that enable them to participate in society.
Why isn’t that satisfactory?
I went to a prep school from the ‘70s - 80s. We received two ratings: grade (A-F) and effort (1-4, 1 being best). Only the grade was used for ranking. The effort was to assist students parents in determining where more effort was needed.
‘Bottome line not everybody is “smart”.’
And everybody doesn’t have the same kind of “smart”.
The NYT contributed to this.
Dearest of dear NYT and NYT author and NYT editor:
All of you, unfortunately, get an “F” for using the term “grit”* as though it is settled use for the term instead of an invented and manipulative term so that a scale which will be assumed to ber “perseverance” can be made and used to claim “grit” as a reason for accepting DEI instead of actual achievement or test scores, etc.
Grit will make people not ready for a particular college class able to do it.
Yea! Those students can skip all the pre-requisites.
Then the professor can grit its teeth trying to do grades and not dissatisfy the gritty administrators.
*
noun
Minute rough granules, as of sand or stone.
The texture or fineness of sand or stone used in grinding.
A coarse hard sandstone used for making grindstones and millstones.
Indomitable spirit; pluck. [<-— traditional John Wayne version before the word-stealing]
intransitive verb
To clamp (the teeth) together.
To cover or treat with grit.
To make a grinding noise.
To give forth a grating sound, as sand under the feet; to grate; to grind.
transitive verb
To grind; to rub harshly together; to grate. “to grit the teeth”
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Ed
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/grit
Who came up with the concept of grit?
Psychologist Angela Duckworth brought the concept of “grit” to the public, providing evidence that talent and luck aren’t all that matter for succeeding in a challenging institutional context.
Duckworth has defined grit as the passionate pursuit of long-term goals. [She gets to define an old word into a new word!]
She and her colleagues published research in 2007 introducing the Grit Scale, which they used to analyze educational achievement, persistence at a military academy, and success in a spelling bee.
Great post.
They used to be called, Strivers. Remember Strivers? And they WERE praised for trying.
Whenever I see the word “GRIT” I think of the newspaper that tried to get you to sell it, through ads in comic books, and “Boys Life”. I have never seen an actual copy. I figured it was something farmers in some other part of the country bought.
I did see a Reddit thread asking if anyone ever sold it, and found this, which will make no sense to anyone younger than a certain age:
I tried selling it at the beach, but some big guy beat me up and stole them. So I gambled a postage stamp on Charles Atlas’ free book and became a muscular tough guy. Went back to the beach, and beat that guy up. And I stole his x ray spex and sea monkeys!
Suddenly they support meritocracy, now?
“GRIT” was published in Williamsport, Pennsylvania FWIW.
Yup, me too.
Under “effort”, my grade cards usually had the notation, “Is capable of greater achievement” (or words to that effect).
I always thought that chemistry and math were designed to keep me down.
That was me. Algebra, Geometry, and Trig were required in NYS for the College Entrance program. I did it (Algebra twice), but barely. The three years each of Science, Latin, and English were a breeze.
In earlier grades, I remember the day when my understanding of “word problems” kicked in. That was pretty cool.
Math, for me doesn’t compute (no pun intended). Hubby has a PhD in Physics. He does math FOR FUN, and buys problem books 4” thick. 😱
I’ve always considered “grit” an attribute related to character, not educational achievement. You can’t quantify someone’s grit level, while learning can be quantified by testing.
“They used to be called, Strivers.”
The opposite of “slackers”, I guess.
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