I’ve been thinking a ton about determination and hard work the last few weeks, wrestling with whether or not today’s kids are as gritty as they need to be.  Maybe I’m a curmudgeon, but it seems like gumption isn’t as common as it once was in our classrooms — and that’s got me worried.

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Download: Slide_TalentCheaper (ppt)

Don’t get me wrong:  My students are as intellectually talented as ever.  In fact, I’d argue that they know more than I ever did when I was rolling my way through middle school.

My struggle is convincing them that talent alone isn’t enough to guarantee that they will be successful in life — and that being persistent in a world where the reset button has always been an easy lean away is still worth doing.

Anyone else worried about this stuff?

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Related Radical Reads:

How Gritty Are Today’s Learners?

Have We Made Things Too Easy for Today’s Kids?

Giving Zeros Just Doesn’t Work

Original Image Credit: Salt-(sea)_B130623 by Dubravko Soric

Licensed Creative Commons Attribution on November 1, 2013