Closing the achievement gap: We’ve been building vocabulary. How about also building character?
What sets children on a successful path in school and, hopefully, in life?
The current belief is that it’s how much children know, so we buy math flashcards for 3-year-olds and sit toddlers down in front of “Baby Einstein” videos. We eliminate recess to direct more time to reading and numbers.
But is the answer stuffing information into children’s brains at earlier ages?
A new book suggests that we are focusing on developing the wrong abilities. What might contribute more to children’s success — especially children growing up amid deep adversity — is persistence, self-control, curiosity, conscientiousness, grit and self confidence, said Paul Tough, author of “How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character,” in a telephone interview.
After visiting classrooms, campuses and laboratories and interviewing teachers, researchers, chess masters and students, Tough concludes that the most significant skills children must learn in their early years can’t be taught with flashcards.
A chronicler of school reforms, including KIPP and the Harlem Children’s Zone, Tough became intrigued by the question of why some children thrive and others fail. (Tough also is the author of “Whatever it Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America.”)
To find answers, Tough interviewed the chess teacher who created a chess dynasty in a poor Brooklyn school. He interviewed the head of a prestigious New York prep school who worried that his cossetted students never tried anything that held the possibility of failure.
“People who have an easy time, who get 800s on their SATs, I worry that those people get feedback that everything they’re doing is great … we are actually setting them up for long-term failure,” Riverdale Country School headmaster Dominic Randolph told Tough.
Tough came to believe that success comes down to a set of character traits that, contrary to the belief that they are innate, can be fostered in children.
And those traits are most important to youngsters from low-income families, who don’t have the family supports and financial resources to protect them from youthful missteps, shield them from consequences and set them back on the right track, he said.
“If you don’t have that kind of safety net — and children in low-income families almost by definition do not — you need to compensate in another way,” said Tough. “To succeed, you need more grit, more social intelligence, more self-control than wealthier kids.”
One genesis for Tough’s interest in character and grit grew out of his reporting on KIPP, the high-achieving network of charter middle schools launched by two young teachers in Houston in 1994. Today, KIPP operates 125 schools in 20 states, including Georgia.
In 2003, KIPP co-founder David Levin watched one of his most impressive Bronx middle-school classes graduate high school and head off to college. At KIPP, the students had earned the highest scores of any school in the Bronx and the fifth-highest in all of New York City.
Levin expected this class to flourish in college. But six years later, only eight of them — 21 percent of the original cohort — had earned college degrees. KIPP continued to see too many of its students make it through high school but flounder in college. Levin decided to figure out why.
According to Tough, Levin discovered that the KIPP students who succeeded in college weren’t necessarily the academic superstars of their grades. They were students who showed greater optimism, resilience and social agility. They were able to recover from setbacks. They didn’t let a bad grade destroy them. They would seek extra help from their professors. They would turn down a movie to stay home and study.
So, KIPP added another dimension to its program, one that continues to evolve. Along with fractions and equations, students learn teamwork, empathy, self control and perseverance. Drawing on social science and cognitive-behavioral therapy, KIPP teaches its students to understand that obstacles can be overcome and evaluates them on zest, grit, self-control, optimism, gratitude, social intelligence and curiosity.
While Tough understands that some parents — and policymakers — may be leery about schools teaching character, he said, “There is a whole lot that we in the public sphere can do to help develop these skills in kids. There is no better vehicle than parents, but I don’t think it’s the right approach to say, ‘If kids aren’t getting these sorts of skill developments at home, there is nothing the rest of us can do.’ I don’t think it is fair to those kids. ”
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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59 comments Add your comment
JW
October 20th, 2012
9:57 am
@homeschooler,
Ron Clark Academy is a PRIVATE school not a public charter school. It is also well endowed by wealthy donors and foundations so that he can serve low income families.
Nancy Pund
October 20th, 2012
3:44 pm
We now know that intelligence can be raised or lowered (plasticity). Students with these character traits will raise their IQ’s and those without may just lower them.
Ole Guy
October 20th, 2012
4:07 pm
It never ceases to amaze me…the simplest of issue; the simplest of answers to the problems du jour lies in the good ole fashioned principles and practices of yesteryear. Nothing will ever change on that front, yet the education community, ostensibly populated by educated folks, keeps biting on these barrels of snake oil in the vain fruitless attempt to regain some form of meaningful structure.
The ONLY way to build character is through the insistance of adhearance to standards…standards in educational performance as well as deportment. When those standards are not met, there must be CONSEQUENCES; through the “suffering” of those consequences, AND the remediation of such (improving), character is developed.
The awarding of false grades…grade inflation…unearned promotion and acolades for “achievements” of a dubious nature, and simply allowing these kids to get away with crap ALL point to the swift and sure deterioration of character. Those educational gurus who haven’t had the spheroids to fully support this agenda have been guilty of contributing to gradual removal of any semblence of character from an entire generation. All the fancy studies, findings and publishings in the world won’t change a thing…in fact, will only further exacerbate the decline and diappearance of anything remotely resembling character…until you, the educational community, start applying STANDARDS to all that you pretend to care about.
Dr. Cletus Bulach
October 22nd, 2012
10:48 am
Many of the comments contend that character is the parent’s responsibility and not the school’s. Unfortunately, school officials have not found a way to involve parents and the community in their character education program. They have also not found a way to motivate students and faculty to implement an effective characher education program. I was the external evaluator for the Georgia DOE character education program from 1999-2003. I used a survey which I developed to measure 96 behaviors on 16 sets of character traits. Scores in year four of the grant tended to be lower than in year two of the grant. Students and teachers were tired of doing the same thing each year.
The survey is on my website and may be used by any school at no charge.
Chapter Five in our book describes a character education program that changes each year and involves parents and the community. Good character cannot not be taught. It must be caught. Students have see teachers and faculty with good character. They have to see it in the home and community. The school reform described in our book is called the “citizenship school.” It does involve all faculty, parents and the community.
Kim Dinerman
October 22nd, 2012
11:12 am
Thank you Maureen for your thoughtful article. Loved the book! After reading, I am firmly convinced that self-control, zest, social intelligence, gratitude, optimism and curiosity are as critical for success as intelligence. The book did leave me wanting more information on the how – How do we as parents nurture these traits in both privileged and under-privileged children and what can schools do to support parents’ efforts? As @SuzannaJemsby points out, what are all the ways I am bringing my kids their forgotten lunch and homework and inadvertently undermining their ability to build these traits.
long time educator
October 22nd, 2012
2:12 pm
This is what veteran teachers have been saying for a long time. Good students have good values, usually taught by their parents. These include respect for others and authority, belief in hard work and delayed gratification. Often spiritual training is evident with values of honesty, fairness, kindness and forgiveness. Successful students have good values and good enough teachers.
southside teacher
October 22nd, 2012
6:49 pm
As long as parents continue to instill in their offspring the belief that everything they do is wonderful and anyone who disagrees is an idiot unworthy of consideration, we will continue to have problems. When I remind your child (again) to return to his seat and work without disturbing those around him, it’s not enough for him to say “it’s cool”. No, it’s not cool, it’s a waste of my time and his intellect to play these ridiculous games. I am a teacher. I am here to TEACH. If your child interferes with that, HE is the problem.
Ivey Shiver
October 29th, 2012
8:59 am
So 2 decades of not giving out “F’s”, everyone gets a trophy, and eliminating dodgeball because someone’s feeling might get hurt has failed? Who would have guessed that this “self esteem at all cost” approach would raise two generations of entitlement minded brats that can’t handle rejection? EVERYONE outside of academia! Failure breeds toughness. It’s up to parents and teachers to encourage kids to buckle down and continue working. As Enstien once said “I didn’t fail, I just found 10,000 ways not to make a light bulb”>
Frank Galton
October 29th, 2012
12:42 pm
While all psychological traits are heritable to some degree, some traits, particularly the non-cognitive ones, seem more amenable to shaping by environmental influences early in life than others. Intensive pre-school intervention for poor black children seems to improve their non-cognitive skills, but not their cognitive skills, over the long run. Yet for too long educators have focused almost exclusively on the cognitive skills about which they could do the least, while ignoring the non-cognitive skills about which they could do the most. So far, no intervention has been found to close the black/white IQ gap of about 15 points, or about one standard deviation. But intensive pre-school programs for black kids DO help to build character in ways that improve life outcomes for these kids. Early exposure to civilized ways of thinking and behaving does help the kids to be successful in life. An IQ of 85, coupled with a can-do attitude, is enough to enable an individual to hold a blue-collar job and be a productive citizen. Intensive pre-school teaches black kids to set goals and stick to them over time, to control their impulses, to be considerate of others, to negotiate difficult social situations without resorting to violence and aggression. As a result, more of these kids end up finishing high school and going on to gainful employment. Fewer of them kids end up in prison or on welfare.
In the same vein, the secret of successful charter schools seems to be their insistence on discipline, as a pre-condition for all other educational activities. Learning self-control is the most valuable lesson that the schools can give these kids. Geoffrey Canada seems to understand this. Because he is black, he can get away with insisting that at-risk black children need a strong dose of discipline at school in order to amount to anything in life. White educators who made the same sensible argument would soon find the Reverends Jesse Jackson Sr. and Al Sharpton picketing outside their door.