Dear Academy Parents,
The halfway mark in the first quarter of the school year has just been crossed. Perhaps this is the time when we begin to think of evaluations, grades and report cards. Perhaps this is also a good time to begin to think about what we need to do (or not do) to help our children become successful.
In sync with these timely questions, it so happens that I am in the middle of reading How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity and the Hidden Power of Character by Paul Tough. The author, a contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine, calls into question what he refers to as the “cognitive hypotheses,” which, as he puts it, is…
… the belief, rarely expressed aloud but commonly held nonetheless, that success today depends primarily on cognitive skills—the kind of intelligence that gets measured on IQ tests, including the abilities to recognize letters and words, to calculate, to detect patterns—and that the best way to develop these skills is to practice them as much as possible, beginning as early as possible. (introduction, page xiii)
What matters instead, Tough claims, “is whether we are able to help [our children] develop a very different set of qualities, a list that includes persistence, self-control, curiosity, conscientiousness, grit and self-confidence. (introduction, page xv)
The book not only affirms, but provides evidence for, an idea which Sacred Heart educators have believed for 200 years—that some traits, such as the inclination to persist at a boring and often unrewarding task, the ability to delay gratification and the tendency to follow through on a plan, are valuable, not only in school but in the workplace and in life!
I suspect this information is not at all surprising to a group of parents who value education. It is certainly not an earth-shattering concept for us as Sacred Heart educators. Dare I say, the book’s claims are satisfyingly affirming.
So, as your children fall into the current cultural trap of claiming boredom while waiting for you as you run errands, or as they struggle with (or even experience a small consequence from not) completing a task, or as they complain when we ask them to try to accomplish something they don’t think they can do, let us smile patiently. Let us not allow ourselves to be drawn into our children’s angst. Rather, let us relish the knowledge that they are gaining skills and developing interior strengths which will, in fact, allow them to push through or carry on and, in the end, be successful adults!
United in our joint task of helping children to grow,
Maureen Glavin, rscj
