IB: Why action not grit!

Grit has been lauded as the potential holy grail for academic success.  If you have grit it is argued you a more than likely to be successfully academically and professionally.  

“The qualitative insights of Winner (1996), Bloom (1985), and Galton (1892), coupled with evidence gathered by the current investigation and its forerunners, suggest that, in every field, grit may be as essential as talent to high accomplishment.”

Willingham defines being gritty as:

“Being deeply committed to a long-term goal and following through on that commitment by pursuing it over the course of years. That goal might be to graduate at the top of your high school class, or to have a successful career in the military, or to be an internationally competitive gymnast.”

Such ideas send Senior Leadership Teams into overdrive in an attempt to give their students additionally weaponry to succeed academically; the term Grit suddenly appears on curriculum models. SLT brainstorming sessions occur to identify what is already in place to develop grit and what else could be done.  The school vision for the year adopts a grit theme to take its pride and place next to previous award winners: Accelerated Learning, No Child Left Behind, Moral Purpose.  Headteachers have a new catch phrase to give backbone to support the classic statement ‘rapid and sustained improvement will be achieved by…..’   And governors can sleep at night knowing their General has a plan.  All this despite no clear evidence to date that grit can be taught, learnt or developed.  And of course such leaps in faith send panic through the teaching ranks at the thought of another ‘great idea’ to be implemented with a potentially short life span until the next great education eureka moment.  

Whether Grit can be taught, learnt or developed, the International Baccalaureate’s curriculum model appears to be in an advantageous position due to its focus on promoting a change agent mindset in young people as opposed to grit mindset. The IB’s focus on Action as a compulsory element of the IB curriculum endeavours to help foster such a mindset. According to Asker International School:

“Action is a part of who we are. If we want to change the world we need to start with changing ourselves. If we want children to make a difference in the world we need to help them personalise the action they take, and understand that it is not just a mandate from their teachers and parents, but a life long mindset they develop. Taking action can happen at any age and may be inspired by a learning experience in the curriculum; from a homeroom project; from a student’s own initiative or from someone/an organisation outside of AIS.  It’s all about how we as parents, educators, and the community, support children and youth as they begin the learning journey towards becoming adults that are change agents!”

It is this type of mindset that has been linked to students who display Grit:

“In one study, researchers asked 1,364 high school seniors who planned to attend college why they wanted to do so. Most of the students were from low-income homes and would be the first in their families to attend college, populations in which college attrition has typically been high. In this group, grittier students were more likely to say they wanted to attend college for reasons that transcended personal success (e.g., they wanted to make an impact on the world or help others) and were less likely to offer reasons related to self-development (e.g., they wanted to develop their interests or learn about the world). These students also said that they found schoolwork more meaningful than did less gritty students. When the researchers followed up months later, they found that the students who had offered transcendent reasons for attending college were more likely to still be enrolled. The researchers explained that the fortitude to continue with difficult tasks can come from seeing them as contributing to a transcendent goal, something larger than oneself.”

So whilst educationalists worldwide continue to seek the holy grit.  This teacher will continue to promote an interest in Action

IB: Approaches to Learning - getting it right

                                                                   (Everett Collection)

“Consistently high level of impact, with pupils making an average of eight months additional progress” Education Endowment Foundation

Meta-cognition and self regulation known in the IB as Approaches to Learning can make a significant impact on students learning according to evidence provided by the Education Endowment Foundation.  Such approaches are: “usually more effective when taught in collaborative groups so learners can support each other and make their thinking explicit through discussion. The potential impact of these approaches is very high, but can be difficult to achieve as they require pupils to take greater responsibility for their learning and develop their understanding of what is required to succeed.”

Before all you progressive education supporters scream “hooray, Yes, I knew it!”  I suggest that we throw caution to the wind.  I gleamed two messages from the summary of the research.  Firstly, successfully engaging students in approaches to learning strategies leads to significant progress. And secondly, that to deploy such strategies effectively is difficult to achieve.  It is this second message that any teacher engaged in developing these strategies in their classroom should pay attention to. If the research suggests such strategies are difficult to achieve then one might infer that these strategies can occasionally, or sometimes, or even often be attempted unsuccessfully.  If so, what are the consequences of such unsuccessful practice? Is it a case of no harm in trying, and students continue on some form of progressive learning trajectory just not as steep? Or do they stall or even regress?  This research indicates that using such strategies are no precursor to significant progress.  It is rarely the what but the how, and as practitioners we need to be diligent and disciplined in how we develop our craft.  My blog on Marginal Gains and the Plateau Effect should hopefully give some indication as to the thought that goes into delivering just one small component of the Approaches to Learning framework (self and peer assessment) as prescribed by the IB.  

Idealism needs to be balanced with rationalism.  Our primary role is to master our craft so that we can deploy the right approaches at the right time to help children learn.  But this mastery should not be at the expense of students learning. We should be strategic in our own learning curve, and practise what we preach.  Using the IB's 5 ATLs: Communication; Social; Self Management; Research; and Thinking as a framework for our own practice, appears a good place to start.