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.
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.
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.
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?
College students say that “trying hard” should be a factor in their grades.
Like staying awake through the entire class..................
Sometimes it’s so hard to let go of the apron strings.
If there were like buttons on this thread I would click them for every comment.
Your link leads to a paywall, unfortunately.
Sounded like a good story.