Dominic Randolph is the headmaster at an elite New York prep school. His clientele is made up of offspring of New York’s elite, a group of rich and powerful people who fork over $38,500 for pre-kindergarten. These kids, you might say, don’t exactly want for anything material. But that lack of financial strife means they might grow up to lack something more important. So how does Randolph give these kids something their parents’ money can’t buy? How does he give them character?
As Peter Drucker famously said, “What gets measured gets managed.”
Angela Duckworth, a Ph.D student at Penn, studies success. Unsurprisingly, she’s found that people who accomplished great things often combined a passion for a single mission with an unswerving dedication to achieve that mission, whatever the obstacles and however long it might take. She decided she needed to name this quality, and she chose the word “grit.” Randolph, after connecting with Duckworth, her Penn psychology department chair Martin Seligman and charter school magnate David Levin, came up with six more important character traits: zest, self-control, social intelligence, gratitude, optimism and curiosity. These seven traits formed the basis of an evaluation system. A “character report card”.
Teachers answer a two page questionaire with statistically realiable indicators like ““This student is eager to explore new things” (an indicator of curiosity) to “This student believes that effort will improve his or her future” (optimism).” The beauty of this system, beside the fact that its actually accurate, is that it tells you where you’re failing. It identifies not only your strengths, but your flaws. This enables you to correct them before they can really ruin you.
There’s a slight problem with this story. Randolph hasn’t gotten to employ this system. Other schools, like Levin’s KIPP charter schools have, but Randolph has only been able to implement a watered down version, one where kids aren’t actually criticized for their shortcomings. Why? The great problem that he identifies with his elite prep school kids is their parents. The ones that call the teacher to try to get their kid an extension on the term paper, or who try to negotiate up their grades. Randolph’s kids aren’t allowed to fail. And failure, it turns out, is what builds character.
Without even the possibility of failure, kids never actually have to overcome anything. When there are no obstacles in the way, you never develop any grit. Randolph fears that without experiencing failure, his kids will never really experience success.
Read the full article here.
Take the “grit” test here.
See the character report card here.
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