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Grit, or the drive to persevere despite setbacks, is a favorite subject in the teaching world. It’s not that grit doesn’t exist—we can certainly describe this trait in others, or in ourselves. But there is a popular idea that grit is the most important thing, that it makes all the difference between underachievers and star students.
That’s a huge oversimplification, of course. For one thing, we have to ask ourselves what kind of obstacles we’re putting in students’ way that they need so much grit to overcome them. Educators have pointed out that it’s easier to say something is wrong with a student (not enough grit) than to fix the problems they are actually encountering.
And even when we look at grit in terms of personal traits, another educator observes that “most people do not persevere at things because they are good at persevering, they persevere because they find things that are worth investing in.”
