Poor Students, Rich Teaching. Eric Jensen

before actually graduating. As the study “The High Cost of High School Dropouts” highlights (Alliance for Excellent Education, n.d.), a significant portion of students who don’t graduate simply give up (versus pursue something perceived as “better”). If you want students to overcome discouragement and failures and succeed in school, they need grit, and it’s a core component of the achievement mindset. The good news is that many of your students already have grit. In fact, they probably have traits that you never expected. Start with the mindset that every single student either already can persist through adversity or learn to do so. This is a way to frame equity from the conversation to action steps.

      When a student’s effort drops, it is easy to say, “She’s not motivated” or “He doesn’t want it very badly.” However, you may be confusing self-control with grit. Self-control is the short-term ability to manage attention and effort while avoiding distractions to reach a goal, such as concentrating for a big test. Grit is the tenacity and strength to pursue your long-term goals (think gutsy goals like getting an advanced degree), even in the face of obstacles, for something worthwhile (Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, & Kelly, 2007).

      It is one of the single most effective traits for student success (Tough, 2012). It is how students deal with adversity and failure and is a greater predictor for student success than IQ (Winerman, 2013). In the classroom, a student might have self-control but have very little grit. The opposite can also be true, but in general they go together, and by teaching students to get gritty, you also impart to them a measure of self-control.

      With low grit (and low self-control), student by student, the collective energy and effort in your classroom drop. This can prompt some teachers to lower their goals and settle for more typical goals of passing or proficiency. However, setting goals for passing or proficiency doesn’t challenge students or allow them to grow. This chapter details strategies to develop grit and offers tools you can use to build it up when grit drops.

       Five Ways to Develop Grit

      Here are five of the best-researched ways to develop grit, some from an interview with MacArthur Fellowship grantee Angela Duckworth, a pioneer of grit (Winerman, 2013). You’ll find even more strategies like these in The Handbook for Poor Students, Rich Teaching (Jensen, 2019).

      1. Help students continually value their gutsy goal: Reference student long-term goals in a variety of ways (such as posters, celebrations, micro goals, and stories) so they see the journey as a worthwhile path to the goal. Many times, a student will become gritty in a project that is highly personal and meets his or her values.

      2. Show students what grit looks like: There are many superb movies that feature grit. Consider scenes in movies such as Forrest Gump, Bend It Like Beckham, and Remember the Titans. But talk about self-control and grit before you show it. Ask students to share something they have already done that shows grit. Most have at least some partial grit examples.

      3. Foster conditions for grit: Build classroom positivity through celebrations, smiles, upbeat music, and affirmations. Positive emotions like optimism tell students that the future is good and it is worth working toward a big goal. You get maximum value in resilience and grit building when the ratio of positives to negatives is about 3:1 (Catalino & Fredrickson, 2011). Ensure that every student, before he or she goes home, has gotten much more positives (affirmations, quality feedback, nonverbal encouragement, and so on) than negatives (criticism, negative nonverbals, exclusion, and so on).

      4. Make grit real in many ways: Use metaphors, quotes, and analogies to refer to grit so students understand it and know exactly what it is. Tell your students that they may not be responsible for getting knocked down, but they are responsible for getting back up. Jamie, our teacher in New Orleans, uses two objects to highlight what grit is (Irish, 2012). One is a real egg, and the other is a special bouncy ball—a Super Ball. The question he asks is, “Are you an egg or a Super Ball?” For a demonstration, he drops both the egg and Super Ball on the floor. The egg breaks, but the Super Ball bounces back stronger than before. “Which one are you?” Jamie asks. If students casually say, “Super Ball,” he will say, “I didn’t hear you! One more time.” Finally, the class roars, “Super Ball!”

      5. Reinforce grit in action: Every time you see a student pushing through obstacles, say, “Love the way you’re being so gritty with that task.” When a student gets frustrated, do not make excuses (“I understand that not everyone succeeds” or “Maybe this is not your thing”). Affirm students’ strengths and give them a pep talk on how you are all in this for the long haul and that this was just a glitch and a time to adapt.

      Keep your perspective developmental. For a first grader, grit might mean sticking with something for ten minutes each week or even a day. Students can start the year with small, twenty-minute activities, but remember the power of asking. Ask for great things out of your students. Students won’t do what you don’t expect or ask them to do. After a short time, they’re ready for something that takes some work every day over two weeks. Soon, and as students mature, you’ll be ready to offer projects that take weeks or months.

      Additionally, when students are negative or disappoint you, you’re getting a gift to develop new skills. Show them how to deal with frustration and disappointment using the tools in the next section.

       Tools for When Grit Drops

      All of us have had lapses in our grittiness. Researchers have uncovered strategies that reignite the passion to get the grit back in action. When grit drops, connect their values and identity to the task to infuse new energy and effort for success (Cohen, Garcia, Purdie-Vaughns, Apfel, & Brzustoski, 2009). Here are several ways to do this.

      Ask students to take a five-minute break. For the first two minutes, give students a stretch, deep-breathing activities, or a faster energizer (see How to Use Physical Activity in the Classroom, page 198). For the next three minutes, ask students to sit and write down a list of their qualities or personal characteristics. Their list might include honesty, humor, and loyalty. Once they think they are finished, ask them to think a bit and add some more. The truth is, all of us have dozens of character traits. The beauty of this list is that it allows the student to see right there in front of him or her “Who am I?” It usually fosters more grittiness.

      I’ve had success in similar situations by reframing the class and adopting the expert-in-training identity. For example, a student who is poor in mathematics wouldn’t hang in there for twenty minutes trying to solve a problem. However, an expert in training would hang in there for twenty minutes.