December 27, 2012
Article on “grit and the new character education” in the Harvard Education Letter featuring the Intellectual Virtues and Education Project
“On a recent Monday, students in Jeff Thielman’s advisory at Cristo Rey Boston High School crowded into his crimson-walled office to take a test. These juniors, like their schoolmates, answered questions aimed not at measuring academic skills but at something that has captured educators’ attention lately: their grit. The test—the 8-Item Grit Scale, developed by psychologist Angela Lee Duckworth at the University of Pennsylvania—asks respondents how they approach goals and handle setbacks and yields a Grit Score (on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 as “grittiest”). It aims to assess character traits like resilience, self-control, and persistence—traits that research shows may matter more to academic performance than native intelligence.”