Saturday Morning Coffee and Common Core

Failure is a Good Thing

Bringing it Back to CCSS

What does it take for 21st century students to succeed in a rigorous, Common Core aligned classroom? A 2013 Report (Promoting Grit, Tenacity, and Perseverance) from the US Dept of Education expressed concern for students “who are learning to do school but are not developing the life skills to persevere in the face of challenges they will face in the real world” (p. 18). The report urges all stakeholders to give priority to “grit, tenacity, and perseverance in curriculum.”

The theory of grit suggests people, (for our purposes—students) cannot be shielded from frustration and failure because the ability to manage both unpleasant experiences and painful setbacks is a necessary life skill. The theory behind grit (yes, taken from the John Wayne movie by Ed researcher, Diane Duckworth) strongly suggests that failure is both helpful and necessary for people to develop an unwavering tenacity, a productive persistence, and the resilience to carry on despite failures. The research on grit from Duckworth segueing with the research on mindset by Carol Dweck is compelling. Research has proven character traits such as perseverance, tenacity, and grit can be taught! This is timely, offering infinite potential for students’ success and our classroom teaching of CCSS and beyond. 

How does this translate into our classrooms? First, consider your everyday conversations with students. Rather than praising a student, “Wow! You are so smart!” use more productive praise “You really paid attention and tried your hardest,” or, “Tell me about the effort you put into this assignment?” Changing our conversations with students is relatively easy and the payoff is enormous, resulting in a shift of students realizing they are the gate keepers to their own learning. They will understand luck and intelligence exists, but hard work and effort gets the job done. 

Teachers, arrange for an occasional student failure. What? This is heretical to teacher training during these last “feel good” decades. It has been suggested that teachers regularly schedule “grit” days where students are placed in a position to struggle (for a very short period of time) in order to learn tenacity, exhibit resilience, and then reflect on their experience. Beware! This will never fly if we have not developed strong student-teacher relationships based upon mutual trust and respect. It is also highly suggested that we share our rationale and goals for growing grit with parents in an effort to bring them on board. 

Be proactive and share personal stories (careful with this one) of moments in your life that were challenging and times when you had to suck up and hang tough. Bio books are perfect vehicles for sharing stories of frustration and failed attempts. Look at students’ role models for inspiration. Michael Jordan’s story is a prime example of repeated failures before his rise to stardom. Let your students know roughly 10,000 hours is the amount of time it takes someone to master a complex skill and within that extended time frame there would be untold frustrations with the learner wanting to throw in the towel and walk away.

In order to succeed with the rigorous demands of CCSS (and more importantly life) it is essential teachers build students’ backbones, supported by classroom structures and routines and healthy relationships, to foster a “don’t give up” mindset. The rigorous demands placed on our students provide endless opportunities for our students’ successes… and failures—a perfect recipe to grow some true grit. We need to recognize CCSS as the game changer. 

So I can’t leave without asking, how gritty are you? Duckworth created both a student grit scale and an adult grit scale to measure grit. No doubt the results will prove teachers and students both need to grow some grit, but I will never tell.