Grit Over Grades

Jack, Gordon

Smith, Tovia. (March 17, 2014). Can focus on ‘grit’ work in school cultures that reward grades? MindShift. KQED. Retrieved from http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/03/can-focus-on-grit-work-in-school-cultures-that-reward-grades/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+kqed%2FnHAK+%28MindShift%29.

Summary

This is a print version of a piece that ran on NPR’s Morning Edition examining the role of “grit” plays in education.  Educators increasingly see “grit”, or persistence in difficult tasks, as a key indicator for school success.  The question this story explores is whether this character trait can be taught or not.  The article profiles schools that are shifting away from focusing on achievement and towards a system that rewards effort, persistence, and even failure.  These schools are eliminating words like “gifted” and “smart” from their interactions with students in favor of language that emphasizes a growth mindset.

Not all educators are on board with this trend, however.  Alfie Kohn argues that this is another education fad that is keeping us from making the reforms we really need to make. “The benefits of failure are vastly overstated,” Kohn argues, “and the assumption that kids will pick themselves up and try even harder next time, darn it — that’s wishful thinking.” When schools begin to evaluate kids on these kinds of character traits, we run the risk of sending the message that if you don’t have grit, you’re not a good kid.

Evaluation

I found this article interesting because it presents a balanced view of this topic that I haven’t seen before.  Evaluating a student’s work is easy compared with evaluating character traits like grit.  Still, I favor the shift away from emphasizing results and focusing instead on process.  By promoting growth mindsets, we help students see that being smart isn’t something one is born with, but rather something one works at.  I also like the comment by Angela Duckworth, the researcher who coined the term grit. “I don’t think people can become truly gritty and great at things they don’t love,” Duckworth says. “So when we try to develop grit in kids, we also need to find and help them cultivate their passions. That’s as much a part of the equation here as the hard work and the persistence.”  Helping students develop their passions is something teacher-librarians are well suited to do. By working with teachers, we can incorporate more choice into assignments to allow students the chance to pair an interest with the subject being learned.

A School Librarian's Journey to Transform Her Library

Anna Taylor
Gilcreast, J. (2014). FROM DRAB TO FAB. Knowledge Quest, 42(4), 38-43.

Jessica Gilcreast just got the position of School Librarian at an urban school in New Hampshire! However, Jessica's joy soon simmers as she enters her new library. Shelves are placed in a way that leaves no open space, books are falling apart and lack diversity, no decor is present, the list goes on. Jessica knows she has a lot of work to do but does something that is very smart; she decides to take everything little by little. 

Throughout the course of six years, Jessica transforms her library into a drab space in the school to a learning commons that meets the wants and needs of both students and teachers. 
Below is a brief over view of Jessica's process:

YEAR 1: 

• Painted a mural
• Weeding 
• Rearranging shelves and furniture
• Build relationships with students, staff, and teachers
• Write a grant for books and a SMART board

YEAR 2:

• More weeding
• Provide professional development opportunities with teachers using new technology
• Create a new tech space for the new SMART board
• Write a grant to add multicultural books into the collection

YEAR 3:

• Take a break and focus on teacher collaboration
• Write a grant for more technology

YEAR 4:

• Create and obtain a connecting computer lab
• Take over the book fair and use the money to purchase more furniture
• Add over 1,000 books to the collection

YEAR 5 & 6:

• Un-Dewey the collection
• Continue making the library an extension to the classroom
• More staff development and integrating technology into the classroom
• Keep up with other libraries and implement new ideas to reflect the needs of the library users

Writing Text Adventures in the Classroom

Dayton, David

McCall, J. (2011). Student-designed text-based simulation games for learning history: A practical approach to using Inform 7 in the history classroom. Retrieved from http://gamingthepast.net/theory-practice/my-work/mccall-informpaper/

McCall makes the case that as games are engaging, they can serve as fruitful too in the world of education. However, McCall doesn't call for playing games – he calls for having students create games. Students used Inform 7 (a natural language text adventure scripting program) to create simple simulations of the ancient Roman world. Students had to work in groups to create a world framework, then expand upon it using their knowledge (and research) of the ancient Roman world. McCall notes that higher-level thinking skills were necessary for world development, as students had to determine how people of the period would act, what was possible, and what interactions were logical between the player and the people of ancient Rome. Students delved deeper into history by creating a textual simulation of it – students examined and attempted to understand history because it became meaningful to them in the creation of the games.

McCall's proposal is a rather good one – it appears that it took his high school history class, spent 2.5 class sessions (50 minutes each) teaching the scripting language and about three sessions with students working on the simulations. Engagement was very high (10 out of 60 even went on to develop additional simulations on their own), and the team aspect of the lesson appeared to have worked well. I'd like to try using Inform 7 with my middle school students at some point, although I'm not sure I can set aside the appropriate amount of time to properly teach the Inform 7 language. However, if the result in a greater appreciation of the subject matter, it would seem very well worth it – especially as this simulation can be extended to other time periods and subjects throughout the course of the year, potentially taking the place of other measures of assessment.

Value of Daydreams & Videogames

Nicole Myerscough

Kelley, T., & Kelley, D.  (2013, October 12).  How Daydreams and Videogames Can Make Us Confident In Real Life (Yes).  Wired, 21(10). Retrieved from http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/10/how-to-build-creative-confidence-daydream-play-video-games-and-more/

This article has an interesting perspective regarding the value of videogames and daydreaming for younger children. The latter of the two, daydreaming, I've always considered important in regards to developmental growth (ex: imaginary friends), but using it as a way to work through problems makes a lot of sense. As adults we often say we need time to think or ponder an issue we're presented with, but never have I thought of it as a type of daydreaming. The though process of an adult and a child may be more similar than we realize, and another example as to why it is necessary to provide students with freedom to choose how best they learn. We can't assume that age can easily define the necessary thought processes required to learn and grow and why their voices are necessary in educational design.

This is an interesting article that offers out-of-the-box thinking that parents/educators may want to consider since confidence building and problem solving are important characteristics necessary to keep students engaged and eager to learn.