Hope, Poverty, and Grit
Calling on our political leaders and plutocrats to show some grit.
When I was a kid “grit” was the stuff that was left in the bottom of the bath tub after I showered following a full day spent on a dusty baseball field. “Grit” was also the stuff in the Lava soap my auto mechanic father used to get the grease off his hands at the end of the work day.
Now the word “grit” has morphed into one more way for the corporate education reformers to blame children, teachers and parents for what they perceive as the shortcomings of public education. Apparently, American school children lack grit and their teachers and parents are failing to instill it on them.
Angela Duckworth, the University of Pennsylvania psychology professor who coined the term, defines grit as "This quality of being able to sustain your passions, and also work really hard at them, over really disappointingly long periods of time.”
I admit by that definition I am not very gritty myself. My father didn’t know grit from shinola, but he often lamented my lack of it. I had a passion for baseball, but couldn’t hit a lick. My dad said I wasn’t trying hard enough. I believed him, so I practiced more, got extra coaching and still couldn’t hit a lick. My dad said I was too lazy to practice enough. I eventually gave up my dreams of being a major league baseball player. See – a grit deficit.
In ninth grade my grit was put to the ultimate test, I was assigned to readSilas Marner, by George Eliot. I tried to grit it out. I read the first chapter. I read most of the second chapter. That was it. I gave up the ghost. It didn’t make any sense of me and even thinking about the novel today makes start to yawn. Fortunately, my copy of the dreaded Silas had the John Steinbeck Russ on Reading: Hope, Poverty, and Grit: