How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character

by Paul Tough

  it predicts so many outcomes: Brent W. Roberts et al., “The Power of Personality: The Comparative Validity of Personality Traits, Socioeconomic Status, and Cognitive Ability for Predicting Important Life Outcomes,” Perspectives on Psychological Science 2 (2007); Angela Lee Duckworth and Kelly M. Allred, “Temperament in the Classroom,” in Handbook of Temperament, eds. R. L. Shiner and M. Zentner (New York: Guilford Press, in press).

  In their 1976 book: Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America: Educational Reform and the Contradictions of Economic Life (New York: Basic Books, 1976).

  [>] “to be properly subordinate”: Ibid., 130.

  “conscientious, responsible, insistently orderly”: Ibid., 135.

  They gave low ratings to employees: Ibid., 137–38.

  [>] “there is no true disadvantage”: Peterson and Seligman, Character Strengths and Virtues, 515.

  Overcontrolled people are “excessively constrained”: Tera D. Letzring, Jack Block, and David C. Funder, “Ego-Control and Ego-Resiliency: Generalization of Self-Report Scales Based on Personality Descriptions from Acquaintances, Clinicians, and the Self,” Journal of Research in Personality 39, no. 4 (August 2005).

  In 2011, that pool of evidence grew further: Terrie E. Moffitt et al., “A Gradient of Childhood Self-Control Predicts Health, Wealth, and Public Safety,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 108, no. 7 (February 2011). See also Paul Solman, “Self-Controlled Kids Prosper as Adults: ‘Fatalistically Depressing’?,” PBS NewsHour, June 13, 2011.

  [>] Duckworth developed a test to measure grit: Angela Lee Duckworth and Patrick D. Quinn, “Development and Validation of the Short Grit Scale (Grit-S),” Journal of Personality Assessment 91, no. 2 (2009); and Angela L. Duckworth, Christopher Peterson, Michael D. Matthews, and Dennis R. Kelly, “Grit: Perseverance and Passion for Long-Term Goals,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 92, no. 6 (2007).

  [>] a national organization called the Character Education Partnership: Character Education Partnership, Performance Values: Why They Matter and What Schools Can Do to Foster Their Development (Washington, DC: Character Education Partnership, April 2008).

  [>] “unexpectedly high rates of emotional problems”: Madeline Levine, The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage Are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids (New York: HarperCollins, 2006), 21.

  “intense feelings of shame and hopelessness”: Ibid., 30.

  [>] To Luthar’s surprise, she found the affluent teenagers: Suniya S. Luthar and Chris C. Sexton, “The High Price of Affluence,” in Advances in Child Development, vol. 32, ed. R. V. Kail (San Diego: Academic Press, 2004), 143; Suniya S. Luthar and Karen D’Avanzo, “Contextual Factors in Substance Use: A Study of Suburban and Inner-City Adolescents,” Development and Psychopathology 11, no. 4 (1999).

  in an even more affluent town: Luthar and Sexton, “High Price of Affluence,” 134.

  multiple persistent problems: Suniya S. Luthar and Shawn J. Latendresse, “Children of the Affluent: Challenges to Well-Being,” Current Directions in Psychological Science 14, no. 1 (February 2005): 51.

  “excessive achievement pressures and isolation from parents”: Luthar and Sexton, “High Price of Affluence,” 135.

  Kindlon discovered disproportionately high levels of anxiety: Dan Kindlon, Too Much of a Good Thing: Raising Children of Character in an Indulgent Age (New York: Hyperion, 2001), 10.

  [>] parents making more than one million dollars a year: Ibid., 18, 246.

  [>] “tell students exactly how they are expected to behave”: Whitman, Sweating the Small Stuff, 3.

  some of Levin’s harsher moments of discipline: Mathews, Work Hard, 214.

  [>] “models an atmosphere of punitive dependence”: Tom Brunzell, “Kaboom! Confronting Student Resistance at the Moment of Impact: A Case Study of KIPP Infinity Charter School,” unpublished thesis (December 2006), 1.

  Only 24 percent of the incoming students: Ibid., 20.

  [>] “before puberty, but late enough in childhood”: Seligman, Learned Optimism (second edition), ix.

  [>] “creates a strong association between future and reality”: Angela Lee Duckworth, Teri Kirby, Gabriele Oettingen, and Anton Gollwitzer, “Mental Contrasting with Implementation Intentions Improves Academic Performance among Economically Disadvantaged Children,” Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology (in press).

  Oettingen has demonstrated the effectiveness: Ibid., 7.

  [>] “provide structure, preparing us for encounters”: David A. Kessler, The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite (New York: Rodale, 2009), 190.

  [>] before trying a ten-hole mini golf course: Jeff Stone, Christian I. Lynch, Mike Sjomeling, and John M. Darley, “Stereotype Threat Effects on Black and White Athletic Performance,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 77, no. 6 (December 1999).

  When people in their sixties: Claude Steele, Whistling Vivaldi: And Other Clues to How Stereotypes Affect Us (New York: W. W. Norton, 2010), 99.

  [>] the malleability of intelligence: See, e.g., Joshua Aronson, Carrie B. Fried, and Catherine Good, “Reducing the Effects of Stereotype Threat on African American College Students by Shaping Theories of Intelligence,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 38, no. 2 (March 2002).

  Dweck divides people into two types: Carol S. Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (New York: Ballantine Books, 2008).

  students’ mindsets predict their academic trajectories: Lisa S. Blackwell, Kali H. Trzesniewski, and Carol S. Dweck, “Implicit Theories of Intelligence Predict Achievement across an Adolescent Transition: A Longitudinal Study and an Intervention,” Child Development 78, no. 1 (January/February 2007): 251.

  a growth-mindset message: Catherine Good, Joshua Aronson, and Michael Inzlicht, “Improving Adolescents’ Standardized Test Performance: An Intervention to Reduce the Effects of Stereotype Threat,” Applied Developmental Psychology 24, no. 6 (December 2003). Catherine Good, Joshua Aronson, and Michael Inzlicht, “Improving Adolescents’ Standardized Test Performance: An Intervention to Reduce the Effects of Stereotype Threat,” Applied Developmental Psychology 24, no. 6 (December 2003).

  3. How to Think

  [>] after I read an article in the New York Times: Dylan Loeb McClain, “For School, National Chess Champions in 3 Grades,” New York Times, December 20, 2008.

  [>] “a hard-charging bunch of 10-to-12-year-olds”: Mark Jacobson, “Mr. Times and His Knights of the Square Table,” New York, May 21, 2005.

  Take a look at the team winners: 2010 National K–12 Championships, United States Chess Federation website; see http://www.uschess.org/tournaments/2010/k12/?page=RESULTS.

  [>] “finest chess playing entity on the planet”: Bruce Weber, “Swift and Slashing, Computer Topples Kasparov,” New York Times, May 12, 1997.

  Newsweek had run a story: Steven Levy, “Man vs. Machine,” Newsweek, May 5, 1997.

  “I’m a human being”: Weber, “Swift and Slashing.”

  [>] what he called the Levitt equation: Jonathan Levitt, Genius in Chess: Discover and Develop Your Chess Talent (Seattle: International Chess Enterprises, 1997), 40.

  “completely misguided”: Jonathan Rowson, “Beyond the Illusion of ‘Talent,’” New in Chess, June 2009.

  “Most of the major academic studies of chess”: Jonathan Rowson, The Seven Deadly Chess Sins (London: Gambit Publications, 2000), 16.

  “your ability to recognize and utilize your emotions”: Ibid., 17.

  [>] “I am such a stupid retarded disgusting mindless child”: Elizabeth Vicary, “North American Open Round Two: Why Am I Such a Huge Baby?,” Elizabeth Vicary’s Blog, December 31, 2007, http://lizzyknowsall.blogspot.com/2007/12/north-american-open-round-two-why-am-i.html. (Elizabeth Spiegel’s maiden name was Vicary. She was married in 2011.)

  [>] “I am almost completely numb”: Elizabeth Vicary, “I Hate Myself,” Elizabeth Vicary’s Blog, July 13, 200
8, http://lizzyknowsall.blogspot.com/2008/07/i-hate-myself.html.

  “he put his arm around me”: Elizabeth Vicary, “My Weekend: A Date, a Saturday Tournament, the Bus to Saratoga Springs,” Elizabeth Vicary’s Blog, March 2, 2009, http://lizzyknowsall.blogspot.com/2009/03/my-weekend-date-saturday-tournament-bus.html.

  [>] “The first day and a half was pretty bad”: Elizabeth Vicary, “Thoughts on Girls, High School Nationals,” Elizabeth Vicary’s Blog, April 20, 2010, http://lizzyknowsall.blogspot.com/2010/04/thoughts-on-girls- high-school-nationals.html.

  [>] One of James’s half brothers was convicted: Dylan Loeb McClain, “One Move Ahead of Opponents, and Two Ahead of Trouble,” New York Times City Room Blog, June 28, 2011.

  [>] “When it comes to ambition”: Aaron and Claire Summerscale, Interview with a Grandmaster (London: Everyman Chess, 2001), 126.

  [>] Inspired by these words: Matan Prilleltensky, “Choosing to Break 2200,” Chess Life Online, January 15, 2011.

  [>] “Chess is a creative and beautiful pursuit”: Aaron and Claire Summerscale, Interview, 128.

  Malcolm Gladwell brought to popular attention: Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 2008).

  [>] the typical grand master had started playing at seven: K. Anders Ericsson, Ralf Th. Krampe, and Clemens Tesch-Romer, “The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance,” Psychological Review 100, no. 3 (1993).

  Polgar was single and childless: Carlin Flora, “The Grandmaster Experiment,” Psychology Today, July 1, 2005.

  Each girl began studying chess: David Shenk, The Immortal Game: A History of Chess (New York: Anchor Books, 2007), 132.

  [>] they were installed in an apartment in Brighton Beach: Fred Waitzkin, “A Father’s Pawn,” New York Times Magazine, May 13, 1990.

  got a degree from a Long Island law school: Dylan Loeb McClain, “A Chess Master Returns Older, and Maybe Wiser,” New York Times, January 27, 2008.

  [>] Csikszentmihalyi studied what he called optimal experiences: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (New York: Harper and Row, 1990), 3.

  “when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits”: Ibid.

  “the concentration is like breathing”: Ibid., 53–54.

  physiological changes among expert chess players: Robert M. Sapolsky, Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994), 419–20.

  [>] what they remembered were patterns, vectors, even moods: My knowledge of Binet’s chess research comes from Shenk, Immortal Game; Philip E. Ross, “The Expert Mind,” Scientific American, August 2006; and Adriaan D. de Groot, Thought and Choice in Chess (Amsterdam: Amsterdam Academic Archive, 2008).

  “a stirring world of sensations”: Shenk, Immortal Game, 127.

  [>] In fact, de Groot found: Ross, “The Expert Mind.”

  [>] In Wason’s study, only one in five participants: Michelle Cowley and Ruth M. J. Byrne, “When Falsification Is the Only Path to Truth,” unpublished paper, 2004.

  Cowley and Byrne then used a chess-analysis program: Michelle Cowley and Ruth M. J. Byrne, “Chess Masters’ Hypothesis Testing,” unpublished paper, 2004.

  they tended to fall prey to confirmation bias: Ibid.; Mark Peplow, “Science Secret of Grand Masters Revealed,” Nature, August 6, 2004; Jonathan Rowson, Chess for Zebras: Thinking Differently about Black and White (London: Gambit Publications, 2005), 35–36.

  [>] “It was a very beautiful game”: Elizabeth Vicary, “A Game That Made Me Cry,” Elizabeth Vicary’s Blog, May 3, 2011, http://lizzyknowsall.blogspot.com/2011/05/game-that-made-me-cry.html.

  [>] “Imagine how frustrating that must be”: Elizabeth Vicary, “James Black’s Master Celebration Party,” Elizabeth Vicary’s Blog, September 5, 2011, http://lizzyknowsall.blogspot.com/2011/09/james-blacks-master-celebration-party.html.

  4. How to Succeed

  [>] As recently as the mid-1990s: Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development, Education at a Glance: OECD Indicators (Paris: OECD Centre for Educational Research and Innovation, 1995), 20.

  the United States has fallen from first: Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development, Education at a Glance 2011: OECD Indicators (Paris: OECD Publishing, 2011), 40, table A1.3a, tertiary-type-A results. (These figures are for 2009, the most recent available. The United States was tied for twelfth in this category with Japan.)

  it has just been growing very slowly: Ibid., 69, table A3.2.

  In 1976, 24 percent of Americans: “Percent of People 25 Years and Over Who Have Completed High School or College, by Race, Hispanic Origin and Sex: Selected Years 1940 to 2010,” U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, Educational Attainment, table A-2, http://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/education/data/cps/historical/index.html.

  [>] the rate among the most disadvantaged young Americans: William G. Bowen, Matthew M. Chingos, and Michael S. McPherson, Crossing the Finish Line: Completing College at America’s Public Universities (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009), 27. Other scholars believe that college-completion rates have been rising for disadvantaged students, though more slowly than they have been rising for wealthy students. See, e.g., Martha J. Bailey and Susan M. Dynarski, “Gains and Gaps: Changing Inequality in U.S. College Entry and Completion,” NBER Working Paper 17633 (Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, December 2011).

  But between about 1925 and 1945: Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz, The Race Between Education and Technology (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), 248.

  “upward mobility with regard to education”: Ibid., 290.

  “Each generation of Americans”: Ibid., 289.

  education-policy types who concerned themselves: David Leonhardt, “The College Dropout Boom,” New York Times, May 24, 2005; Sarah Turner, “Going to College and Finishing College: Explaining Different Educational Outcomes,” in College Choices: The Economics of Where to Go, When to Go, and How to Pay for It, ed. Caroline M. Hoxby (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 14; and Tamar Lewin, “Once a Leader, U.S. Lags in College Degrees,” New York Times, July 23, 2010.

  [>] the United States still ranks a respectable eighth: OECD, Education at a Glance 2011, 316, table C2.1.

  But in college completion: Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development, Education at a Glance 2008: OECD Indicators (Paris: OECD Publishing, 2008), 96, chart A4.2; 92, chart A4.1.

  can now expect to earn 83 percent more: David Leonhardt, “Even for Cashiers, College Pays Off,” New York Times, June 25, 2011.

  among the highest in the developed world: OECD, Education at a Glance 2011, 150, table A8.2a.

  it has risen sharply: Goldin and Katz, The Race, 290, figure 8.1.

  American college graduates earned just 40 percent more: Leonhardt, “Even for Cashiers.”

  “is leaving large amounts of money”: Goldin and Katz, The Race, 325.

  [>] data covering about two hundred thousand students: David Leonhardt, “Colleges Are Failing in Graduation Rates,” New York Times, September 9, 2009.

  Americans’ natural tendency toward “educational romanticism”: Charles Murray, Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America’s Schools Back to Reality (New York: Crown Forum, 2008), 11.

  “a fog of wishful thinking”: Ibid., 12.

  [>] students who had those same lofty academic credentials: Bowen, Chingos, and McPherson, Finish Line, 104, 110.

  the most accurate predictor of whether a student: Ibid., 113.

  he explains that the SAT was invented: Nicholas Lemann, The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000).

  high-school grades turned out to be excellent predictors: Bowen, Chingos, and McPherson, Finish Line, 122.

  [>] “Students with very good high school grades”: Ibid.

  And when Angela Duckworth: Angela Duckworth, Patrick Quinn, and Eli Tsukayama, “What No Child Left B
ehind Leaves Behind: The Roles of IQ and Self-Control in Predicting Standardized Achievement Test Scores and Report Card Grades,” Journal of Educational Psychology, in press, 2011.

  “high school grades reveal much more”: Bowen, Chingos, and McPherson, Finish Line, 123.

  [>] Alex Kotlowitz’s book: Alex Kotlowitz, There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other America (New York: Anchor Books, 1991).

  [>] contrasting the “superfluity of opportunity”: Jonathan Kozol, Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools (New York: Crown Publishers, 1991), 67.

  “shunned—or, probably, shut down”: Ibid., 68.

  [>] read a front-page story: Jodi S. Cohen and Darnell Little, “Of 100 Chicago Public School Freshmen, Six Will Get a College Degree,” Chicago Tribune, April 21, 2006. After the Tribune article came out, the consortium report was updated and corrected to show that eight of every one hundred Chicago high-school freshmen would earn a college degree, not six of every one hundred.

  just eight of every one hundred students: Melissa Roderick, Jenny Nagaoka, and Elaine M. Allensworth, From High School to the Future (Chicago: Consortium on Chicago Schools Research, 2006).

  fewer than one in thirty black male: Cohen and Little, “Of 100 Chicago Public School Freshmen, Six Will Get a College Degree”; Roderick, Nagaoka, and Allensworth, From High School to the Future; e-mail communication with Emily Krone of the Consortium on Chicago Schools Research. The Tribune story showed that the odds were one in forty; that figure changed when the report was updated.

  [>] “study skills, work habits, time management”: Melissa Roderick, Closing the Aspirations-Attainment Gap: Implications for High School Reform (New York: MDRC, April 2006), 25.

  “critical thinking and problem-solving abilities”: Ibid., 26.

  “High school teachers could have very high workloads”: Ibid., 22–23.

  [>] the percentage of American tenth-graders: Ibid., 3.