Grit, Resilience, and Motivation in Early Childhood

Practical Takeaways for Teachers

Lisa B. Fiore

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781351618403
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Early Childhood Education

Grit, Resilience, and Motivation in Early Childhood moves past current media buzz about grit, resilience, and motivation as proverbial silver bullets and provides early childhood educators with a much-needed focus on developmentally appropriate activities and expectations related to those terms. Illustrated with classroom case studies, caregiver and community resources, and teacher behaviors, this powerful guide presents practical applications for educators to more deeply understand the research that will strengthen and support young children.

1
What’s Going On Here?

You’ve got this.

Three words make up a simple statement—shorter than most fortune cookie fortunes—that conveys confidence, faith, and trust in one compact sentence. Why is it so challenging for some children to embody or internalize this same sentiment? And what is the role of teachers in supporting children’s learning and development in a societal climate that emphasizes competition, assessment, and accountability? It is hard to be a teacher. And it is definitely harder today than when John Dewey (1916) was writing about education and democratic ideals. Following the format of Margaret Wise Brown’s (1977) The Important Book, we could argue that the important thing about hard things is that they are hard. It is hard for teachers to balance the demands of work inside and out of the classroom, which includes increased attention on school violence and other sources of stress, and we know that children find it hard to be a student, too. They know it and they feel it.

Hard Things

Data indicates a significant increase in school violence for schools around the world (Benbenishty & Astor, 2014), and children in grades as early as preschool are—directly or indirectly—impacted by stress related to bullying, gangs, drug use/abuse, and standardized testing. A recent article titled “Baby PISA Is Just Around the Corner, so Why Is No One Talking About It?” (Wasmuth, 2017) presents information about plans already underway, coordinated by the international Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). These plans include a research study—the International Early Learning and Child Wellbeing Study—that will “gather information on children’s cognitive and social-emotional skills” (p. 1) as well as “measure domains of emerging literacy and numeracy, executive function, and empathy and trust” (p. 1) through direct assessment. And furthermore, “[c]hildren will be expected to do their work on a tablet” (p. 1).

Early childhood educators, and educators at all levels of schooling who believe in educating the “whole child,” recognize that academic achievement is influenced by some skills that are simply not measurable, or rather don’t fit neatly into a determinate design. Rightly so. Yet categories have emerged in which discernable skills have been assigned as either academic skills or “soft” skills. Notice that it’s not “hard” versus “soft” skills, though that is absolutely the connotation, and the implied message is that academic skills contain more rigor, density, and value. Other familiar terms for these categories are “cognitive” versus “noncognitive” skills, which imply that the academic skills reside in the head and the soft skills reside someplace else. Experts in research and policy argue that “noncognitive” skills, also referred to as “social-emotional” skills, “are linked to academic achievement, productivity, and collegiality… positive health indicators, and civic participation” (García & Weiss, 2017, p. 1) and are critical to children’s overall health and well-being.

It is therefore no surprise that qualities such as grit, resilience, and motivation have gained renewed, increased attention—crossing discipline boundaries and influencing practices in fields such as psychology, sociology, and education. For those who are curious, it is interesting to notice the blurred lines that exist, leading to some confusion about the relationship between science and education, for example. What appears to be proven in scientific research may not translate effectively into classroom practice, and what “success” looks like in one context may look very different in another context, and may require resources and supports specific to a community, classroom, and individual. By its very nature, any blueprint or roadmap leads to an end that is already known, and human development simply does not work according to such guides, though history, experience, and the wisdom of experts in a variety of forms greatly inform the journey.

Misperceptions about early childhood education and what it takes to succeed complicate the already challenging educational terrain. For example, in his best-selling book, How Children Succeed, author Paul Tough states, “Most early childhood classrooms in the United States today are designed to develop in children a set of specific pre-academic skills, mostly related to deciphering text and manipulating numbers” (Tough, 2012, p. xii). He goes on to cite a curriculum, Tools of the Mind, with interventions designed to help children learn skills that include “controlling their impulses, staying focused on the task at hand, avoiding distractions and mental traps, managing their emotions, [and] organizing their thoughts” (p. xii). If I were using this paragraph as a reading in a college class of pre-service teachers, I would ask them to highlight or underline words/phrases that strike them as interesting, puzzling, and/or worth exploring together, identifying and challenging our own assumptions, as well as those of the author. After an initial, critical challenge to the statement about “most” early childhood classrooms in the U.S., questions that might arise include:

How do we define pre-academic? Are we not born ready to learn?

What happens when behaviors fall outside of specific, predetermined skills? How do we encourage creativity and flexibility?

What skills matter? Who decides?

“Truly believing in the potential of all students requires changes in daily practices that are deeply embedded in school culture” (Krovetz, 2008, p. x). Early childhood educators do not enter the profession because of a love of hard things. They enter the profession because of a love of children, children’s thinking, learning, playing, and ways of seeing and understanding the world. They would argue that most early childhood classrooms invite children to explore the way the world is now and to question why that is so. This stance toward teaching and learning is consistent with Ian Gilbert’s (2014) writing about independent thinking, where teachers “open [students’] minds to question, to reflect, to look beneath the surface, to have beliefs that they will fight for and fight for the beliefs of others, even if they don’t agree with them” (p. 155).

Early childhood educators possess dispositions that tend toward an acceptance of difference, an inquisitive spirit, and a comfort with mess because of a conviction that process is as important—if not more so—as products in revealing children’s innate competence. Educator and children’s advocate Erika Christakis (2016) argues:

Today’s children will one day grow up; more children will come and go. And as each successive wave leaves childhood behind, they become the adults who misread and misunderstand the latest batch of arrivals, who are patiently waiting for us to see them as they truly are.

(p. 297)

Focusing Our Own Lenses on Grit, Resilience, and Motivation

Throughout this book, vignettes are presented to provide opportunities to focus early childhood educators’ lenses on ordinary, lived experiences, and to notice the grit, resilience, and motivation inherent in each story. As you begin to focus your own “noticing” skills in new ways, you will likely notice that while the terms grit, resilience, and motivation are often used synonymously, there are subtle, distinct differences between the terms. These differences can guide decisions about teaching practices and advocacy in your own context. And because every classroom possesses a unique combination of individuals and resources, it is helpful to get a sense of the broader context against which definitions may be examined and challenged.

Recent demographics in the United States suggest that a hypothetical classroom population would include students possessing the following qualities:

7 out of 30 live in poverty

11 out of 30 are non-white

6 out of 30 do not speak English as a first language

6 out of 30 are not reared by their biological parents

1 out of 30 are experiencing homelessness

6 out of 30 are victims of abuse

(Sultan, 2015)

While teacher education programs strive to provide students with knowledge and skills to best equip them for classroom teaching, no one licensure or certification program can encapsulate all of the challenges and design comprehensive strategies that will address the needs of all learners equally. Once this is acknowledged as a fact, educators who embrace a practice of lifelong learning for learning’s sake are themselves modeling grit, resilience, and motivation for children, families, administrators, and community members. In the chapters that follow, each term will be presented in detail. The terms will be discussed briefly here, to establish a framework in which the concepts are understood not as traits, but instead as reflections of systems at work in every child’s life—internal and external. Guiding questions that help anchor this framework include:

• ◆ How can early childhood educators recognize these qualities as they are manifested in the classroom?
• ◆ How can we teach children skills to develop and enhance these qualities?
• ◆ How can early childhood educators collaborate with others to improve systems that already exist?

Grit

Ask people to make an association with the word “grit,” and words that come to mind often include “tough,” “persistence,” “fortitude,” and “never give up,” to name a few common terms. People also don’t tend to associate the term with young children, as they imagine strong, often male characters, who may or may not be dirty! It’s no surprise that many people also reference the famous Western film featuring John Wayne— True Grit (Nathan, Wallis, & Hazen, 1969). It’s a pleasure to consider the main character of the film—a young girl named Mattie Ross—who sets out to avenge her father’s death and finds assistance on her mission. She states with absolute conviction, “You must pay for everything in this world, one way and another. There is nothing free except the grace of G-d.”

In the popular media circles, psychologist Angela Duckworth’s (2016) writing and lectures (see www.ted.com/talks/angela_lee_duck-worth_grit_the_power_of_passion_and_perseverance) have brought much attention to this term. The most appealing premise of the work is that grit can be taught, and if more people learn how to be gritty, they will be more successful. This assumes they will be happier as well, and perhaps enjoy fulfilling careers. Some concepts that are linked with the concept of grit—much like how atoms make up molecules—are persistence and delay of gratification. These will be discussed in Chapter 2, but the relevant characteristic is the ability to persist when faced with frustration, or even when obstacles seem particularly overwhelming. Some specific strategies that have been identified in research (e.g., Dacey, Mack, & Fiore, 2016) about persistence include:

Tolerating ambiguity or the unknown

Learning to take moderate risks

Acquiring a sense of personal courage

Valuing delay of gratification

Avoiding rigid thinking

Avoiding “drift”

The notion that children can be taught to develop/possess grit holds tremendous promise for people concerned about the levels of stress and anxiety that continue to increase among adolescents, and the competitive global landscape that we are reminded about constantly. So a term that was anchored in psychological research has become adopted by other fields, such as sociology and education. This has led to some concern and criticism expressed by experts in those fields. For example, in educational settings, administrators and teachers have begun using “grit” as common parlance that means “sticking it out.” Children have begun recognizing moments when they persist as “gritty.” In this manner, critics argue that the main impetus for teaching children to be gritty is to promote academic achievement. Prominent authors and education advocates encourage educators and caregivers to reflect on other possible goals for children, such as helping them to lead healthy lives infused with integrity and creativity (Kohn, 2014).

For example, author and advocate Alfie Kohn (2014) writes:

when students throw up their hands after failing at something they were asked to do, it may be less because they lack grit than because they weren’t really “asked” to do it—they were told to do it. They had nothing to say about the content or context of the curriculum. And people of all ages are more likely to persevere when they have a chance to make decisions about the things that affect them.

(par. 23)

The concern is echoed by Linda Nathan, who emphasizes the inequities that children experience related to economic resources in schools and poverty in general. She argues that when children do not succeed (and what this means is different to different people in different contexts), blame is cast upon “the student rather than a system that is inherent...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1 What’s Going On Here?
• 2 Constructing an Understanding of Grit
• 3 Constructing an Understanding of Resilience
• 4 Constructing an Understanding of Motivation
• 5 Risk Factors: Poverty and the Environment
• 6 Risk Factors: Race, Gender, and Disability
• 7 Awareness of Self
• 8 Responsibility for Others
• 9 Advocacy and Action