I’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 DUCKWORTHMany things matter other than our measured intelligence, so let’s get to work on them.
More Angela Duckworth Quotes
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Drive is something that can be encouraged by a wonderful teacher, by a terrific classroom environment, by an awesome soccer team that you are on, and it can be squashed as well.
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Being 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.
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Is it ‘a drag’ that passions don’t come to us all at once, as epiphanies, without the need to actively develop them?
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It’s also stamina in your direction, stamina in your interests. If you are working on different things but all of them very hard, you’re not really going to get anywhere. You’ll never become an expert.
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When people think of the word ‘drive,’ they often think you have it or you don’t, and that’s where we’re wrong.
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Everybody knows that effort matters. What was revelatory to me was how much it mattered.
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Really, what matters in the long run is sticking with things and working daily to get better at them.
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Grit may carry risk because it’s about putting all your eggs in one basket, to some extent.
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Some people prefer a world where we’re all equally talented in everything. Whether you prefer that world or not, I don’t think that world exists.
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I think the very idea of character, of developing not just grit, but empathy and curiosity, emotional intelligence.
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During all my undergrad years and in high school, I was involved in tutoring and public service. At Harvard, I spent over 35 hours a week doing service. I was a Big Sister, I worked for the homeless, the elderly; it was the epicenter of my focus.
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When people tell me I can’t do something, I have a visceral reflex to say, ‘Yes, I can.’
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Psychologists call this the maturity principle. My own life experience fits this principle to a T.
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Maybe. But the reality is that our early interests are fragile, vaguely defined, and in need of energetic, years-long cultivation and refinement.
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I know a lot of CEOs who are looking for three- to four-year varsity athletes – not necessarily because these people are going to be doing pushups or spiking volleyballs in the workplace, but because they’re looking for that continuity, that person who was gritty about something.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH