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Grit is an extremely important personality trait, the most important imho, but you only get to see it when you see someone fail or struggle. It’s not easy to de

Grit is an extremely important personality trait, the most important imho, but you only get to see it when you see someone fail or struggle. It’s not easy to determine with an individual, let alone with a population.

JoeAltmaier 8y ago
Kids don't struggle and fail? I think we all know who's who on the Grit scale, by the time they reach college.
- gaius 8y ago
  I don’t think that’s true. When I arrived at college I was in a group where most, including myself, had coasted to being one of the top in their previous classes with minimal effort. Now we all had to actually work. My class of 80 was reduced to 40 by the end of the first term.
  - village-idiot 8y ago
    I see that a lot with kids who were labeled as talented or gifted early on. The question is: can you develop grit, or is it natural? Did you respond to the new pressures in college, or were you uncovering a latent skill the remaining 40 did not have? I genuinely don’t know.
    - toast0 8y ago
      I'm pretty sure it's a skill to be developed, although certainly some find it easier to develop, and some use the new freedoms of adulthood to choose not to develop the skill. Based on my experience, and that of my peer group, I've decided it's important to try to make sure children have some experience with things that are hard, so they can start developing skills to handle it. For some (most?), this may not require anything extra; for others, it requires extra effort to provide activities that are actually a challenge, but also engaging.
- village-idiot 8y ago
  Yes, absolutely. But that’s for kids you know. You’ve seen them enough over the years to have an idea how they work. The next step is to find a way to measure the grit of someone you don’t know. You don’t have the opportunity to wait for grit proving moments to arrive naturally, you have to figure out a way to force that test artificially. The next step is make that test consistent, free from cultural biases, and easy to administer.

JoeAltmaier 8y ago

Kids don't struggle and fail? I think we all know who's who on the Grit scale, by the time they reach college.

gaius 8y ago
I don’t think that’s true. When I arrived at college I was in a group where most, including myself, had coasted to being one of the top in their previous classes with minimal effort. Now we all had to actually work. My class of 80 was reduced to 40 by the end of the first term.
- village-idiot 8y ago
  I see that a lot with kids who were labeled as talented or gifted early on. The question is: can you develop grit, or is it natural? Did you respond to the new pressures in college, or were you uncovering a latent skill the remaining 40 did not have? I genuinely don’t know.
  - toast0 8y ago
    I'm pretty sure it's a skill to be developed, although certainly some find it easier to develop, and some use the new freedoms of adulthood to choose not to develop the skill. Based on my experience, and that of my peer group, I've decided it's important to try to make sure children have some experience with things that are hard, so they can start developing skills to handle it. For some (most?), this may not require anything extra; for others, it requires extra effort to provide activities that are actually a challenge, but also engaging.
village-idiot 8y ago
Yes, absolutely. But that’s for kids you know. You’ve seen them enough over the years to have an idea how they work. The next step is to find a way to measure the grit of someone you don’t know. You don’t have the opportunity to wait for grit proving moments to arrive naturally, you have to figure out a way to force that test artificially. The next step is make that test consistent, free from cultural biases, and easy to administer.