CURMUDGUCATION: Grit-- Not Just For Students!

CURMUDGUCATION: Grit-- Not Just For Students!:

Grit-- Not Just For Students!

New leaps forward have been made in grittology, the study of that elusive quality, the lack of which gives reformy leaders cause to castigate schoolchildren across the country.

Holly Yettick reports at EdWeek that University of Pennsylvania researchers Claire Robertson-Kraft and Angela Duckworth have published a study of grit as it applies to teachers and the hiring process. The study (the pdf of which is titled "truegrit.pdf," so kudos for the academic humor) opens with this statement of background/context:

Surprisingly little progress has been made in linking teacher effectiveness and retention to factors observable at the time of hire. The rigors of teaching, particularly in low income school districts, suggest the importance of personal qualities that have so far been difficult to measure objectively.

Was it possible, they wondered, to hire teachers who were actually going to be tough enough to stick it out on the job. In short, could we spot the teachers with grit?

Duckworth is the scientist for the job, having coined the term grit back in 2007 (presumably as it applies to education and not sandpaper). As a founding mother of grittology, Duckworth worked on a 2009 study that linked grit to effectiveness in novice teachers, but that study, says Yettick was limited because the subjects self-reported for grittiness (doesn't everybody want to think of