People who are really gritty – they’re still interested.
ANGELA DUCKWORTHPeople who are really gritty – they’re still interested.
ANGELA DUCKWORTHI believe kids should choose what they want to do, because it’s their life, but they have to choose something, and they can’t quit in the middle unless there’s a really good reason.
ANGELA DUCKWORTHThere are so many things that kids care about, where they excel, where they try hard, where they learn important life lessons, that are not picked up by test scores.
ANGELA DUCKWORTHI do feel it’s hard to be modest and humble and egoless when people are telling you you are so great and wanting to give you prizes and energy. I’m trying hard not to be an awful, narcissistic human being.
ANGELA DUCKWORTHI define talent as the rate at which you get better at something when you try. To be very talented means you get better faster and more easily than other people or other things that you try.
ANGELA DUCKWORTHSubstituting nuance for novelty is what experts do, and that is why they are never bored.
ANGELA DUCKWORTHLongitudinal studies following thousands of people across time have shown that most people only begin to gravitate toward certain vocational interests, and away from others, around middle school.
ANGELA DUCKWORTHGrit, in a word, is stamina. But it’s not just stamina in your effort.
ANGELA DUCKWORTHThere’s this really awesome theory of human motivation – that human beings all want three things. One is to be competent, one is to belong, and one is be free, as in to have choice: to not be told what to do but to choose what to do.
ANGELA DUCKWORTHI think the questions on the grit scale about not letting setbacks disappoint you, finishing what you begin, doing things with focus, I think that those are things I would aspire to or hope for for all our children.
ANGELA DUCKWORTHIs it ‘a drag’ that passions don’t come to us all at once, as epiphanies, without the need to actively develop them?
ANGELA DUCKWORTHBeing gritty doesn’t mean not showing pain or pretending everything is O.K. In fact, when you look at healthy and successful and giving people, they are extraordinarily meta-cognitive. They’re able to say things like, ‘Dude, I totally lost my temper this morning.’ That ability to reflect on yourself is signature to grit.
ANGELA DUCKWORTHPsychologists call this the maturity principle. My own life experience fits this principle to a T.
ANGELA DUCKWORTHI’m not a policy oriented person. I’m constrained to what I study. But educational policy has not yet taken adequate note of the whole child. Kids are not just their IQ or standardized test scores. It matters whether or not they show up, how hard they work.
ANGELA DUCKWORTHI ended up doubling the math time that a conventional school would have. But I don’t think any of these things were path-breaking or unusual.
ANGELA DUCKWORTHI think the very idea of character, of developing not just grit, but empathy and curiosity, emotional intelligence.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH