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Max Ivory

Jackie Burr

English 2010

19 April 2018

Keystone of Succses

In our schools, work and households, a rising problem presents its ugly self; grit: lack of

drive and determination. Grit the epicenter of long term progress and success, “grit is living life

like a marathon not a sprint” a quote by Angela Lee Duckworth—One of the lead researchers on

grit—demonstrating that grit is a mindset, to achieve through rigor. A adverse effect has risen

with grit, through the rising generations. Children are beginning to lose grit, in different ways—

depending on the type of grit in question—affecting the development of the rising generations in:

the workplace, school, marriage, emotional strength, psychical determination, and personal

growth. A main cause in the loss and lack of grit can be found in failure and comfort, both

creating their own spin on grit, with diffrenting effects. Grit is very in depth as obviously

presented, but highly correlated and related; grit is the keystone of success, and without grit,

success is weakened, but still mendable after a few balancing acts. Grit is hard to measure and

test, because grit hasn't completely been defined, and being a branch of psychology, there are

many opinions that all can describe grit; including nature, nurture. Both arguments have

reasonable options for grit. With each aspect there is an obvious correlation who succeeds and

who fails in the certain avenue. This document will underline four branches of grit: emotional,

physical, mental, social, and ; and will support on the nurture argument; and how they all focus

on school education. “The new research in education is encouraging considering grit as an

important aspect to improve school performance.(Al-Mutawah, 97)”

Emotional grit in schools usually focuses on arguments and fighting in schools Tyler
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Bastian the principle at Roots highschool—”Roots Charter High School targets students who are

at risk of academic failure in the greater West Valley City area and instills them with the

knowledge, skills and ability to live healthy, productive and sustainable lives.”— mentions that

“were pushing for emotional grit [so] when the kids are angry they don't destroy [that

person]”. The idea is that if something challenges that they will be able to stay their

voice or behavior; with anger, sadness or attention. Such as the class clown that does

not have the grit to not pipe up and make an inappropriate comment; this behavior is

obviously learned by operant conditioning, where the action is reward and with positive

reinforcement. A positive example of a kid that has developed emotional grit, was a

student at Roots “ we have a kid that would swing at anybody, but then about a week

ago a kid pushed him and he turned around and smiled”-Tyler Bastian. Emotional grit

helps us function in our social groups and handle problems or difficulties with calm

demeanor. A lot of kids suffer from this, it is usually developed through failure with past

experiences, and observation of their parents and siblings. Another possible outcome,

which is poverty where one learns the mentality of you must fight if you want it; which

isn't always true in the real world. Although poverty sounds like it creates grit usually,

poverty presents difficult insurmountable hurdles, and majority of the time kids fail, so

they learn fight for the things you know you can win, which is not grit. Many options to

fix emotional grit, some are: talking, anger management, and little victories. If not fixed

the lack of emotional grit can affect future marriages or job security.

Mental grit can be related in schools as the ability to overcome problems and not

give up. A possible problem is, if a student can't use a computer at home does he give

up or seek out a new means for success; like a library. Mental grit is huge for problem

solving and success in workplace and school. Without mental grit many kids lack the
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strength to fight for long term success, in school; even if they are smart. Angela Lee

Duckworth noticed this with her students “But what if doing well in school and in life

depends on much more than your ability to learn quickly and easily?”, and set out to

discover how much mental grit helps students. She concluded that “[mental] Grit is

sticking with your future, day in, day out, not just for the week, not just for the month, but

for years, and working really hard to make that future a reality.”, hand propelled new

research on the topic of mental grit in schools and life. Many groups and facilities have
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done an extreme amount of research, discovering more about the increasing problem of

mental grit. “Students did not display a determined attitude. When we look the data

according to gender factor. it is seen that the grit point means of girls are higher than

the boys’ grit point means.(Beyhan)”, proves that the rising generations are throwing up

their hands when they see a wall they can't step over. Mental grit has been lacking in

our school systems and children, partly to technology. Before technology when children

were board they had to create and problem solve, now they can just flip open their
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phone and problem solved; no thought needed. This is incredibly dangerous, for the fact

that if problems are always answered, how will children be able to create solutions when

the problem can't be instantaneously solved. Children need to be taught strategies to

stay organized, and

that they can

overcome obstacles

that stand in their

way “[Students

who] perceive

ability as a

malleable skill.

Those who think

intelligence is

inherent and

unchangeable exert

less effort to

succeed and have

a fixed mindset [can

develop grit

easier].(Hochanade

l,48)”

Social grit

helps children
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maintain and stand with a relationship in school, or at home when it gets rough; kids are

surprisingly lacking this skill too. Youth are developing relationships through phones,

and are rarely getting out to create new relationships. Currently children rather make

friends in the screen than in public, because its easier. These relationships or weak and

undirected and usually don't last long. Children will soon graduate with only their small

circle of friends. Because of the lack of developing strong real relationships, the kids

don't have the grittiness to reach out to their support groups, social media becomes the

means of doing so. “An early review examining the use of dedicated self-harm support

sites in young people found high levels of support available online alongside

normalisation of self-harm behaviour . A more recent systematic review relating to self-

harm and internet use in young people additionally found evidence of information

sharing of methods of self-harm and concealment, a reduced sense of isolation and

reinforcement of positive behaviours such as help seeking. (Marchant,2)” Kids need the

practice in their lives for future experiences such professional endeavors where they

must solve social problems in person not over the phone. The only possible fix for this is

make a huge push for public get togethers, for the rising generations.

Physical grit, helps students fight through the sweat and tears, of physical strain.

Physical grit isn't as big of an epidemic as the rest but it is still on a negative slope.

Children are losing the grit to stay on something that is physically tasking, such as

exercise, cleaning or helping. Obesity is rising because of this and will continue rising.

Physical fitness is important to be able to have the stamina to achieve things. The rising

generations are lacking the grit to gain more stamina. One possible cause is trivial

problems, usually we really don't need to get up and work, we need to create problems
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such as weights; “previously in our history we had to farm or we would die”-Tylar

Bastian. But exercise is still very important “Incorporating exercise into daily routines is

important to help young children learn, explore the environment, gain body awareness,

and support self expression and socialization(Cibrian,277)” The best combat for this is

make exercise fun, socially connected and nearby. Children would get out and explore

these options, such as the basketball court right outside a home, is an epicenter of

exercise and social interaction. If possible integrating many similar styles of

opportunities would propel physical exercise; give options of other games for kids to

explore if they don't prefer alternatives.

In general grit is a necessity in the rising generations lifes. How to achieve an

increase of grit to avoid a new epidemic. Grit is found by succeeding through difficult

challenges, so if the community as a whole took a economic, or social hit grit would

exponentially increase. Grit is the keystone of all success if a person does not of the

capacity to pursue passion with perseverance they will be passed by those who can.

Previously in history physical strength made the strongest, and the ones most likely to

survive but now in the day in age, grit is the new survival tool. Allowing children to climb

over the walls and blast through anything in their way. It's time to begin teaching grit in

schools and implementing it in the community.

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Works Cited

Al-Mutawah, Masooma Ali and Moosa Jaafar Fateel. "Students' Achievement in Math and Science: How

Grit and Attitudes Influence?." International Education Studies, vol. 11, no. 2, 01 Jan. 2018, pp. 97-

105. EBSCOhost,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ1167661&site=ehost-live.

Beyhan, Omer and Gokhan Bas. "Research for Grit Levels of Prospective Teachers in Terms of some

Variables." International Journal of Research in Education and Science, vol. 3, no. 1, 01 Jan. 2017,

pp. 203-207. EBSCOhost,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ1126692&site=ehost-live.

Cibrian, Franceli L., et al. "Hunting Relics: A Persuasive Exergame to Promote Collective Exercise in

Young Children." International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, vol. 32, no. 3, Mar. 2016,

pp. 277-294. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/10447318.2016.1136180.

Hochanadel, Aaron and Dora Finamore. "Fixed and Growth Mindset in Education and How Grit Helps

Students Persist in the Face of Adversity." Journal of International Education Research, vol. 11,

no. 1, 01 Jan. 2015, pp. 47-50. EBSCOhost,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ1051129&site=ehost-live.

Marchant, Amanda, et al. "A Systematic Review of the Relationship between Internet Use, Self-Harm and

Suicidal Behaviour in Young People: The Good, the Bad and the Unknown." Plos ONE, vol. 12, no.
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8, 16 Aug. 2017, pp. 1-26. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0181722.