Psychologists call this the maturity principle. My own life experience fits this principle to a T.
ANGELA DUCKWORTHMost people who are really, enduringly interested in something eventually find that it’s important, too – and important to other people.
More Angela Duckworth Quotes
-
-
Why do some people try, try again, and why do some people not? That’s what I’m after.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
You cannot will yourself to be interested in something you’re not interested in. But you can actively discover and deepen your interest.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
People who are really gritty – they’re still interested.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
At various points, in big ways and small, we get knocked down. If we stay down, grit loses. If we get up, grit prevails.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
There 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 DUCKWORTH -
What we reliably find is that people’s perseverance scores are actually higher than their passion scores, and I think it really does get to the fact that working hard is hard, but maybe finding your passion is even more difficult.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
I know that instructional time is a zero-sum game, but if we want kids to do well academically, it’s hard to imagine that happening if they don’t have some control over their attention.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
The focus on just thinking about standardized test scores as being synonymous with achievement for teenagers is ridiculous, right?
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
I 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 DUCKWORTH -
Some of the things we do are great, but they often have these iterations that are not great. We screw up sometimes. We get rejected.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
Maybe. But the reality is that our early interests are fragile, vaguely defined, and in need of energetic, years-long cultivation and refinement.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
There are going to be peaks and valleys. You don’t want to let kids quit during a valley.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
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.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
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 DUCKWORTH -
Grittier students are more likely to earn their diplomas; grittier teachers are more effective in the classroom.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH