Grit and resilience set students up for success, but are these traits innate or can they be taught?
With 7.5 million TED views of her “grit” talk, Angela Lee Duckworth needed no introduction to educators and leaders around the world, taking part at the BETT Show yesterday.
Duckworth, an assistant professor in psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, research subjects including students, West Points cadets, and corporate salespeople, all whom she studies to determine how “grit” is a better indicator of success than factors such as IQ or family income.
The straight-A pupils who do best at school can be the ones most lacking in the grit they need in adult life, according to a leading expert in resilience. Duckworth said she called such students “the fragile perfects” because they had not experienced failure before they arrived at university.
“The kids who never have an opportunity to fail – I see them, as I teach at an Ivy League university,” she said. “I call them ‘the fragile perfects’, because they’ve never gotten a B in their lifetime. They have been winners all the way through. And if you are a winner all the way through it’s really hard to lose.”
Watch Angela´s TED talk:
According to Forbes Duckworth´s research validates the beliefs in the key to success for individuals, teams and a business. While intelligence is required, Duckworth demonstrated that the determining factors for success were perseverance, hard work and drive to improve.
