“Grit is sticking with your future day in, day out and not just for the week, not just for the month, but for years” (Duckworth). In the documents presented, the advantages and disadvantages of grit are illuminated in order to convey the strategies used to develop students success. While individuals can be humiliated by failing regularly, grit is a better predictor of achievement throughout life because it sets apart individuals; self-confidence is built, and it brings value to hard work.
Grit can be defined as maintaining effort and interest throughout challenges which set apart individuals from the rest of society. As Duckworth argues her viewpoint on grit, she states that individuals with resilience develop “Four traits: interest, purpose, practice, and hope” (Doc. B). Without these four traits, some people would be considered failures. The host of the radio talk show implements the traits to show the difference between a person who does not reach their goal and an individual that goes far and beyond to achieve their long-term objective. Furthermore, the way strategies are taught can also differentiate between students and or adults. Educators need to inform their students “that it’s entirely within their power to turn any individual failure around” (Doc. D). Fink addresses that higher educators should discuss with their students that it is okay to fail because they will always have the opportunity to improve. This allows students to have trust in their teachers, take advantage of their advice, and try to change their habits for a better education. Individuals that strive for a better education practice grit and therefore sets them apart from others who fall into deep failure and decide to give up.
By practicing grit children will have more self-confidence and therefore will gain a substantial amount of self-achievement in their daily challenges. The teacher from eastern culture picked on a student who he thought would not get the problem but yet “at the end of the class, he did make his cube look right! And the teacher said to the class ‘How does it look class? And they all looked up and said, ‘He did it!… The kid smiled a huge smile and sat down, clearly proud of himself” (Doc. A). Eastern and western cultures tackle learning differently and in the eastern culture, they choose on the student who does not know the answer. Instead of the teacher helping or guiding them to the correct answer, they will wait patiently for the student to obtain the solution and at the end when the student understands, they will be rewarded with self-pride. There should always be a challenge for excellence because the “students who are not challenged lose out on the sense of confidence that comes from mastering a challenge, and they may come to believe that accomplishment should be effortless” (Doc. D). Individuals are not being challenged because everything comes effortlessly to them. Students that do not set a higher standard for themselves never truly face a challenge but if they practice grit they will have to set a goal for themselves that will consist of physical and emotional conflict. Therefore, students, or anybody for the matter, who practice’s grit will have self-confidence because they will know that they need to experience failure to achieve success.
Grit can bring value to hard work because it can be established as determination and passion for long-term goals. A gritty individual may “approach achievement as a marathon; his or her advantage is stamina” (Doc. C). A student may vigorously strive to achieve their long-term purpose in life and their one asset is determination. The fact that they are striving vehemently to achieve their objective will bring value to their decisions they will be making in the future. Li addresses practice and discusses how it is “the process of persisting through it despite the challenges and not giving up, [which] leads to success” (Doc. A). A student should keep on going despite the obstacles they come across. Without determination and practice, there would be no reason for the individual to keep endeavoring towards their goal because they will not feel at ease with the amount of effort they put into a task. The effort, that an individual puts into an objective should accommodate value and self-accomplishment, especially when the morality is just.
Although grit can be beneficial it can also be harmful to an individual because it can cause humiliation from their performance. It builds self-confidence but can also expose “a disappointing lack of humility on the part of policymakers who allow themselves to believe that it’s possible to find easy solutions to hard problems” (Doc. E). Individuals that obtain too big of an ego can suffer consequences that will hurt them later in life. There is no problem that students challenge themselves to find a solution, but it can cause them to be disappointed in themselves if they keep on failing repeatedly. Alex Spiegel, an American public radio producer, wrote about Jim Stigler’s experience in a Japanese class and how “every few minutes, the teacher would ask the rest of the class whether the kid had gotten it right, and the class would look up from their work, and shake their heads no” (Doc. A). In eastern cultures, such as Japan, a struggle is tackled differently than in western cultures. As the student progresses up to the board they may feel humiliated because they recognize that they do not know the answer to the problem. Failing repeatedly at the same problem might cause them to panic and give up, especially in front of many other students. In all, humiliation may be the key aspect in the downfall of students success.
Thus, grit is made up of several components which can be beneficial and harmful to individuals. The documents that were presented mostly side on the positive outlook of grit and how it is a tool that students and adults should utilize in order to achieve their goals in life. It also sets apart individuals in society, self-confidence is built with achievement, and hard work is valued because they strive to accomplish goals. Individuals that obtain too big of an ego can suffer consequences that will hurt them later in life.
