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Anna North writes in the NYT that self-control, curiosity, and “grit” may seem more personal than academic, but at some schools, they’re now part of the regular curriculum. Some researchers say personality could be even more important than intelligence when it comes to students’ success in school. “We probably need to start rethinking our emphasis on intelligence,” says Arthur E. Poropat citing research that shows that both conscientiousness and openness are more highly correlated with student performance than intelligence. “This isn’t to say that we should throw intelligence out, but we need to pull back on thinking that this is the only game in town.” The KIPP network of charter schools emphasizes grit along with six other “character strengths,” including self-control and curiosity. “We talk a lot about them as being skills or strengths, not necessarily traits, because it’s not innate," says Leyla Bravo-Willey. “If a child happens to be very gritty but has trouble participating in class, we still want them to develop that part of themselves.”
But the focus on character has encountered criticism. “To begin with, not everything is worth doing, let alone doing for extended periods, and not everyone who works hard is pursuing something worthwhile” says Alfie Kohn. "On closer inspection, the concept of grit turns out to be dubious, as does the evidence cited to support it. Persistence can actually backfire and distract from more important goals." There’s other evidence that grit isn’t always desirable. Gritty people sometimes exhibit what psychologists call “nonproductive persistence”: They try, try again, says Dean MacFarlin though the result may be either unremitting failure or “a costly or inefficient success that could have been easily surpassed by alternative courses of action,”
(Score: 2) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Monday January 12 2015, @04:32PM
Without mindfulness, being aware of yourself, your mental states, and your environment, and being able to concentrate and focus, none of the other stuff matters much. To accomplish something, you must have the focus to actually do it (good ideas are a dime a dozen) and the equanimity to persevere through both success and failure. This is the "difference that makes the difference" and is ignored in the education industry because there's no profit angle. There's nothing to sell. There's nothing to market.
Intelligence, in Wittgenstein's sense, is a meaningless abstraction. To justify the "intelligence industry" there are metrics like I.Q. which appear to measure intelligence, but are really just bogus numbers. You can't quantify or even talk about "intelligence" because it doesn't exist as an abstraction. You can talk about facility with certain concepts or applications, but there is no such thing as "intelligence" which exists independently of some context.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 12 2015, @06:25PM
If you think the word intelligence fails the picture theory of language then how can you talk about mindfulness, self-awareness, and mental states? They would also fail. You could not talk about facility with any concepts. The later Wittgenstein rubbished the picture theory of language..
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday January 12 2015, @09:31PM
The qualities that somebody things are the most important usually are closely related to those qualities that they believe themselves to have. If the person in question has generally succeeding in achieving their goals, they will say those qualities were what led to their success (even if what really led to their success was to a large degree dumb luck). If, on the contrast, the person in question has not yet succeeded, they may complain about the obvious benefits of those same qualities not being properly taken into account.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.