Year 11 Pastoral Guardian
Why do Some Students Accomplish More than Others of Equal Intelligence?
Within the confines of our college community, I have witnessed students who are passionate in mind and spirit and will not let failure get the best of them - whose healthy competitive spirit motivates them to try harder, take more risks, and even be more creative.
Grit is a quality that sets your daughter apart from other students. Recently, in a survey, Year 11 students identified spirit as one personal quality shared by successful students -the intangible, unseen human nature that dictates and prepares them for uncertainty.
Life throws circumstantial curveballs and our students, more than ever, must be slightly quicker, nimbler. Incredibly, survey participants believed, while struggling is a liability on their journey, it is a necessary evil, in preparing them for the future.
While the thought of failure may take your daughter on a journey on which she may not wish to go, the reality is, these journeys form and shape her into a well-rounded person; able to balance the relational, creative, and physical areas of her life. Remember, failure is your daughter’s first attempt at anything!
Indeed, failure encourages growth and maturity as human beings - promoting deeper meanings and understandings about life and enabling us to reflect and put things into perspective. Recovering from loss becomes far more effortless with the knowledge and experience of that failure under her belt.
It is impossible to live without failing at something unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default.
J K Rowling
So it makes sense that grit is essential for your daughter, and that failure is an integral part. Most people assume grit means persistence; however, there’s more to determination then perseverance. Professor Angela Lee Duckworth, an American academic, psychologist, and popular science author, advocates that grit is “hard work and not quitting things when they’re hard, but I also mean passion” (Duckworth/2010).
Often, young women misunderstand their skill development, with self-beliefs that inhibit their performance traits. Your daughter may lack the ability to solve a problem, and therefore give up. Encourage her to be able to change her mind when presented with new information that contradicts her beliefs. Inspire her to throw caution to the wind, now and then, to buy into solving the problem. Provide steps to problem solve, identifying the issues, working out solutions, executing these solutions and, most importantly, evaluating their efficiency, value, and worth.
Theresa Chiechi / The Balance
Remind her that it is okay to feel confused when learning something new. Shift her thoughts toward believing she can solve that problem. With over 35,000 ideas a day, what if 1000 of your daughter’s thoughts shift towards accepting - she could do something that contradicted a previous belief in the ability to solve the problem? (Bridwell,2017)
As educators and parents, it is our responsibility to provide a challenging environment, to offer wellbeing platforms for our students and daughters to explore their potential through education, infused by our rich Franciscan ethos.
Unfortunately, there are no shortcuts to academic, cultural, service, or sporting excellence; if things were easy, then maybe we wouldn’t need grit. Most things that are worth doing take a long time and sustained commitment.
Speech Pathologist Julia Wakes aptly sums up grit for students who embrace this belief, “Grit is the belief you will and can; it might not be easy, but there is a way through it, be strategic and persevere (Wakes, 2020).
While, in the short term, your daughter approaches assessment, encourage her to embrace the idea of grit, and know that, if she persists, her world will be a happier place. Equally too, if we can effectively embrace these robust dispositions in our college community, we will position our students to lead prosperous, resilient, and fulfilling lives.
Bridget Piper
