Posted by Jay Livingston
Tough uses the word “grit” a lot.
In today’s Times (here), Joe Nocera writes about a book, How Children Succeed, by Paul Tough. Mr. Tough recommends that schools teach not just reading and math but “character” – traits like “resilience, integrity, resourcefulness, professionalism, and ambition.” In the past few years, some psychologists have published peer-reviewed papers supposedly showing a relation between names and life choices or behavior. Dennis becomes dentist, George becomes a geologist and moves to Georgia. It sounds silly, and it is. The research doesn’t hold up. Andrew Gelman (here) has written about it. So have I (here).
But even when you know the systematic evidence, the anecdotal data jumps out at you. Like Mr. Tough and grit.
Having endured “I presume” my entire life, I sympathize with Mr. Tough for the “jokes” he must have tired of long ago. I just hope that the research on grit and schools is better than the research on names and personal choices.
No comments:
Post a Comment