The key to success - Grit

When I was 27 years old, I left a very demanding job in management consulting for a job that was even more demanding: teaching. I went to teach seventh graders math in the New York City public schools. And like any teacher, I made quizzes and tests. I gave out homework assignments. When the work came back, I calculated grades. What struck me was that I.Q. was not the only difference between my best and my worst students. Some of my strongest performers did not have stratospheric I.Q. scores. Some of my smartest kids weren’t doing so well. And that got me thinking. The kinds of things you need to learn in seventh grade math, sure, they’re hard: ratios, decimals, the area of a parallelogram.

*[,strætәu'sferik]  *[,pærә'lelәgræm]
a. 同温层的         n. 平行四边形

But these concepts are not impossible, and I was firmly convinced that every one of my students could learn the material if they worked hard and long enough. After several more years of teaching, I came to the conclusion that what we need in education is a much better understanding of students and learning from a motivational perspective, from a psychological perspective. In education, the one thing we know how to measure best is I.Q., but what if doing well in school and in life depends on much more than your ability to learn quickly and easily? So I left the classroom, and I went to graduate school to become a psychologist. I started studying kids and adults in all kinds of super challenging settings, and in every study my question was, who is successful here and why?

My research team and I went to West Point Military Academy. We tried to predict which cadets would stay in military training and which would drop out. We went to the National Spelling Bee and tried to predict which children would advance farthest in competition. We studied rookie teachers working in really tough neighborhoods, asking which teachers are still going to be here in teaching by the end of the school year, and of those, who will be the most effective at improving learning outcomes for their students? We partnered with private companies, asking, which of these salespeople is going to keep their jobs? And who’s going to earn the most money?

*[kә'det]           rookie ['rʊkɪ]
n. 军官学校学生     n. 新手新人菜鸟 第二年球员 新秀

In all those very different contexts, one characteristic emerged as a significant predictor of success. And it wasn’t social intelligence. It wasn’t good looks, physical health, and it wasn’t I.Q. It was grit. Grit is passion and perseverance for very long-term goals. Grit is having stamina. Grit is sticking with your future, day in, day out, not just for the week, not just for the month, but for years, and working really hard to make that future a reality. Grit is living life like it’s a marathon, not a sprint. A few years ago, I started studying grit in the Chicago public schools. I asked thousands of high school juniors to take grit questionnaires, and then waited around more than a year to see who would graduate.

*['stæminә]                *['mærәθәn]              sprint [sprɪnt]
n. 精力, 活力, 耐力, 雄蕊  n. 马拉松, 耐力的考验    n. 冲刺；短跑 vt. 全速奔跑

Turns out that grittier kids were significantly more likely to graduate, even when I matched them on every characteristic I could measure, things like family income, standardized achievement test scores, even how safe kids felt when they were at school. So it’s not just at West Point or the National Spelling Bee that grit matters. It’s also in school, especially for kids at risk for dropping out. To me, the most shocking thing about grit is how little we know, how little science knows, about building it. Every day, parents and teachers ask me, “How do I build grit in kids? What do I do to teach kids a solid work ethic? How do I keep them motivated for the long run?” The honest answer is, I don’t know. (Laughter) What I do know is that talent doesn’t make you gritty. Our data show very clearly that there are many talented individuals who simply do not follow through on their commitments. In fact, in our data, grit is usually unrelated or even inversely related to measures of talent. So far, the best idea I’ve heard about building grit in kids is something called “growth mindset.” This is an idea developed at Stanford University by Carol Dweck, and it is the belief that the ability to learn is not fixed, that it can change with your effort. Dr. Dweck has shown that when kids read and learn about the brain and how it changes and grows in response to challenge, they’re much more likely to persevere when they fail, because they don’t believe that failure is a permanent condition. So growth mindset is a great idea for building grit. But we need more. And that’s where I’m going to end my remarks, because that’s where we are. That’s the work that stands before us. We need to take our best ideas, our strongest intuitions, and we need to test them. We need to measure whether we’ve been successful, and we have to be willing to fail, to be wrong, to start over again with lessons learned. In other words, we need to be gritty about getting our kids grittier. Thank you.

在我27岁的时候， 我辞去了一份非常有挑战性的职业—企业管理咨询， 转而投入了一份更加具有挑战性的职业：教育。 我来到纽约的一些公立学校 教7年级的学生的数学。 和别的老师一样，我会给学生们做小测验和考试， 我会给他们布置家庭作业。 当这些试卷和作业收上来之后，我计算了他们的成绩。 让我震惊的是，IQ的高低并不是 我最好的和最差的学生之间唯一的差别。 一些在课业上表现很好的学生 并不具有非常高的IQ分数。 一些非常聪明的孩子反而在课业上表现的不那么尽如人意。 这引起了我的思考。 当然，学生们在7年级需要学习的东西 是有难度的，像比率，小数， 平行四边形的面积计算。 但是这些概念是完全可以被掌握的， 我坚信我的每一位学生 都可以学会教材内容， 只要他们肯花时间和精力的话。 经过几年教学之后， 我得出一个结论，我们在教育方面所需要的是 从学习动力的角度和心理学的角度， 对学生和学习行为 进行一次更为深刻的理解。 在教育体系中， 我们都知道评价优秀学生的标准 就是IQ， 但如果在学校和生活中的优秀表现 远不仅仅依赖于 你轻松高效学习的能力呢？ 所有我离开了讲台， 回到学校继续攻读心理学硕士学位。 我开始研究孩子和大人， 在各种非常具有挑战性的情况下， 以及在各项研究中，我的问题是 谁才是成功者，为什么他们会成功？ 我和我的研究团队前往西点军校展开调研， 我们试图预测哪些学员 能够耐得住军队的训练，哪些会被淘汰出局。 我们前去观摩全国拼字比赛， 同时也试着预测哪些孩子会晋级到 最后的比赛。 我们研究在恶劣的工作环境下工作的， 刚入行的老师，询问他们 哪些老师决定会在学年结束后 继续留下来任教， 以及他们之中谁能最快地 提高学生的学习成绩。 我们与私企合作，向他们询问 哪些销售人员可以保住工作， 哪些可以赚钱最多？ 在所有那些不同的情境下， 一种性格特征凸显了出来， 这种特征在很大程度上预示了成功。 而且它并不是社交智力。 不是漂亮的外表，强健的体魄，也不是很高的IQ， 它是毅力。 毅力是对长远目标的激情和坚持， 毅力是拥有持久的恒劲， 毅力是你对未来的坚持，日复一日 不是仅仅持续一个星期或者一个月， 而是几年甚至几十年努力奋斗着 让自己的梦想变为现实。 毅力是把生活当成一场马拉松而不是一次短跑。 几年前，在芝加哥的公立学校里， 我开始研究毅力。 我对上千名初中生进行了 关于毅力的问卷调查， 然后等候了一年多， 来看最终哪些学生能毕业。 结果证明那些更具毅力的学生 在毕业的概率上占绝对优势， 即使是在同样可以量化的外在因素下 像家庭收入， 标准化成绩测验的分数， 甚至是孩子们在学校能获得多少安全感之类，仍是有毅力的学生更容易毕业 所有不仅仅是在西点军校里或者全国拼字比赛上 才需要毅力。在学校亦是如此， 尤其是对于那些徘徊在辍学边缘的孩子们。 对于我自己来说，关于毅力最让我震惊的事情莫过于 对于毅力，我们知之甚少， 在培养毅力上，科学对理解的认识又是何等贫乏。 每天都有家长和老师来问我， “我怎样做才能培养孩子的毅力呢? 该做些什么才能教授给孩子们真正的职业道德？ 又该怎样调动他们长期的积极性呢？” 老实说，我不知道。（笑声） 我所知道的是，才华并不能使你坚韧不拔。 我们的数据十分清楚地表明， 有许多才华横溢的人， 他们都无法坚持兑现自己的承诺。 事实上，根据我们的数据来看，毅力通常与其他因素无关， 甚至与才华的衡量标准背道而驰。 到目前为止，我所听说过的在孩子身上培养坚韧品质最有效的方法 叫“成长型思维模式。” 斯坦福大学卡洛杜威克提出过一个观点， 他相信 人的学习能力是可变的， 它随着你的努力程度而变化。 杜威克教授表示，当孩子们阅读和学习有关大脑的知识 以及它在面对挑战时 所发生的变化和成长情况， 他们失败之后更容易坚持下去， 因为他们 不相信会一直失败下去。 因此，成长性思维模式对培养毅力大有裨益。 但是我们需要更多。 我决定在此结束我的评论， 因为我们正在经历着这一切。 这是眼前所面临的工作。 我们要拿出最好的想法和最强的直觉， 我们要对他们进行实践。 我们需要估量这一切是否成功 同时还要渴望对失败和错误， 要从这些失败中汲取经验重新再来。 换句话说，我们只有自己变得更有毅力 才能让我们的孩子变得更有毅力。 谢谢大家！ （掌声）