I had bought this book when it first came out but I had put
off reading it since I was learning what was in the book form the mass media
since this topic and Ms. Duckworth’s book was a ubiquitous subject amongst the
education and coaching wonks. Grit and resilience had become the Growth mindset
for the last few years. After a while, I finally decided to sit down and read
it.
All of that is to say that my impressions of the book are
affected by the widespread popularity of the subject and my lack of enthusiasm
is not so much that I disliked what Ms. Duckworth wrote, it is that my
impressions of the book suffered from being exposed to the subject due to her
success in getting her ideas through to the reading public.
As with most books which appeals to the business crowd, Ms.
Duckworth follows the tried and true business book formula: define the problem,
lay out the solution to the problem, and give a lot of anecdotal case studies
backed with qualitative summaries of quantitative studies in order to get past
the general public’s impatience with numbers and lack of aptitude with
statistics. In this regard, Ms. Duckworth did a masterful job. Every chapter is
backed up with numerous anecdotes; she patiently attacks our preconceived
notion of intelligence being the determining factor for successful people with
wave upon waves of examples that makes her point for her. In fact, when she
does goes to the solution phase of her book: Growing Grit from the Inside out
and Growing Grit from the Outside In, she still couldn’t quite let go of her
initial pedantic mode.
Even as the reader has become more than convinced of her
thesis, she persists in attempting to persuade the reader to accept her premise
that Grit is important and desirable in our lives. It was all this reader could
do to NOT scream: I get it, it is important, it is a great character trait to
have and develop, get to explain the HOW and not the WHY.
While I am a firm believer in letting each person develop
their own methodology in teaching, it was somewhat maddening to be reading more
anecdotes which illustrate her key ideas in how to train grit. In the end
however, I did glean lessons on a process, I will have to apply this process
experimentally and apply the scientific method to ascertain whether my guessing
was correct. In the end it will probably be better for me to go through this
process rather than being spoon fed a process, it doesn’t lessen the frustration.
Indeed, this book was indeed a landmark achievement, I just
wish that the author did not choose to follow the business book clichés and be
more direct with her conjectures on the What-If’s and How’s of attaining Grit.
