Grit, Discipline and Grades

I posted a couple of weeks ago about the importance of students learning to not give up and develop a sense of stickwithitness in order for them to be successful not only in school but also in their professional lives or college.  In reading from Paul Tough's book How Children Succeed and from the work of psychologist Angela Duckworth, some of the traits that have made students successful in school and beyond have been identified.  Angela Duckworth identified the leading trait for success as Grit.  She argues that for students to be successful, they must develop the character trait of grit, of being able to stick with something even when it is hard or unpleasant.  Looking at some of the most successful people in history, Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, they all possessed a high level of grit.  They didn't give up even in the face of multiple failures.  We need to help our students develop this grit, this attitude of not giving up no matter what. 

The second part of this post goes along with this idea of grit.  Students in order to be successful much also have discipline.  When I say discipline, I am not talking about what I do with students who are in trouble all day as an Assistant Principal.  I am referencing more to the self control that one needs to develop.  I think of a successful football team and how they play with discipline.  I am not an Alabama football fan, but it is no surprise that Nick Saban's football teams have won 3 out of the last 4 national titles.  His team doesn't make mistakes.  They play disciplined football.  They don't miss assignments or try to make the flashy play.  They do the small and simple things that they need to win.  They play disciplined football.  In order for our students to be successful, they must demonstrate the same level of discipline.  They must be able to work through difficult situation and demonstrate self control.  In Tough's book, Duckworth mentions in her research a study from the 60's called the Marshmallow Experiment.  The Marshmallow Experiment is a research experiment in which researchers put small children through a challenge.  The kids were given a marshmallow but told if they could wait and not eat the marshmallow for 15 minutes, they would be given two marshmallows.  There were some kids that waited and some who didn't.  The research became interesting in that years later, as the researchers followed up with the kids years later, those kids who were able to wait for the second marshmallow in general made higher salaries, graduated from college more quickly, and had better family relationships.  Self Control and Discipline proved to be a key component to being successful not only in school but in life. 

Because of this, I think that character education is very important.  Schools cannot simply teach content and students have to learn more that Reading, Writing and Arithmetic.  If we are to teach life superheroes and prepare our students to be successful in life, they must learn certain character traits that will set them up for success.  Which bring me to my final point.  Grades. I know that in many circumstances, grading policies are not necessarily the most accurate assessment of student learning or student mastery of content.  The interesting thing, however, is grades are the number 1 indicator of how likely a student is to graduate college or not.  SAT and ACT scores are traditionally viewed as more important by universities for admissions and scholarships, but GPA is a far more accurate indicator of student success in college. Why is that?  If ACT and SAT theoretically measure student mastery of content more accurately that GPA which is subjective to the schools and teachers the students have, why is GPA more accurate in assessing student success in colleges?  What do grades measure if they are not measuring learning?  For students to get successful grades, they do not need to have great mastery of the content in many circumstances.  It does however require high levels of grit and self control.  So while I think our grading policies can be changed to better reflect how effectively students are learning content, there is something to be said for students who are disciplined enough to stick with something and not accept anything but a high grade.  I know that this is kind of an old school attitude toward education, but there is something to be said for kids who are willing to stick with difficult tasks and not accept anything less that excellence in their work.  The challenge is for us as educators to teach these important traits to our students beginning at a young age.  It has to be about more than just content.

Learning or Teaching

My good friend Adam Holman constantly reminds me of a nagging question in education, "If the student isn't learning, then is the teacher teaching?"  It is a fair question.  I feel like many times our focus as educators is lost in the instructing of students and not so much in the learning done by students.  In our day and age of teacher accountability, we are not held accountable for teaching the content to the students but for our students learning the content.  Many times it is difficult for us to enter this paradigm shift.  I know for myself, I would leave campus after a long day of work frustrated that my students didn't understand what I just taught them.  I would look for something or someone to blame (other than myself of course).  When we took benchmarks and the scores weren't as high as they should be, I would be upset.  "We covered this" "I know I taught this" "We talked about this just yesterday"  What I failed to think about was did the students learn it.  How did I know whether the knew it or not?  If they didn't learn it, did I keep teaching without making adjustments? 

Mike Schmoker in his book Focus keys in on the most important teaching strategy that teachers can use in the classroom.  He says that if teachers can do this one simple thing, learning will be accelerated and in 9 months teachers can average more than 2 years of academic growth with their students.  What is the strategy?  Simply checking for understanding of all students.  THAT'S IT! How can it be that simple.  When you think about it however, it is much more complex than that.  There are a multitude of strategies that can be used however to check that all students understand and learn the content throughout the lesson.  Some of my favorite strategies for checking for understanding are: Think Pair Share where I walk around talking to the students as they talk to their partners, Students answering questions using individual white boards, quick writes and exit tickets, Interactive Clickers systems like through CPS, Thumbs up Thumbs down, and Four Corners.  These all gave me the chance to immediately check in with students and see what they learned from the lesson and what they still needed more support in.  What are your favorite strategies for checking for understanding?

To truly support our students, we must understand what they are learning.  We have to give them a chance to show us what they are learning.  If we are just going through lessons and having the kids take notes without regularly and intentionally checking to see what each student has learned in the lesson, we will teach, but the students might not learn.  Does that mean we have taught?