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Cultivating Perseverance in Teens: Strategies for Building Resilience and Determination

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Cultivating Perseverance in Teens: Strategies for Building Resilience and Determination

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Cultivating Perseverance in Teens: Strategies for Building Resilience and Determination All Posts -

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Discover our guide on Cultivating Perseverance in Teens. Dive into effective strategies for building resilience and determination among teenage individuals. Usable insights for parents, teachers, and mentors eager to promote perseverance in adolescents.

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Preparing Kids for College and Getting Them Through | Podcast

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Preparing Kids for College and Getting Them Through | Podcast

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Preparing Kids for College and Getting Them Through

More people are going to college than ever before, but a lot of them aren't finishing. Low-income students, in particular, struggle to get to graduation. Only 9 percent complete a bachelor's degree by age 24. Why are so many students quitting, and what leads a few to beat the odds and make it through? In this documentary, American RadioWorks correspondent Emily Hanford introduces us to young people trying to break into the middle class, teachers trying to increase their chances and researchers investigating the nature of persistence.

The YES Prep charter school network has proved that a good high school education can help close the achievement gap. Since it was founded in 1995, almost all of its graduates have gone to college. But most of those students have not finished their degrees. Why aren't they graduating?

"Grit" is a personality trait that some people have more of than others. New research is exploring whether grit may be a key to college success.

First-generation college students are twice as likely to quit college as students whose parents have bachelor's degrees. Meet four students whose stories illustrate why it's a challenge to be the first in your family to go to college.
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SHARE THIS PROGRAM REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK
American RadioWorks education correspondent Emily Hanford quit college and eventually went back and graduated. In this reporter's notebook, she talks about why she left and how her experience helped shape her interests as a journalist. Read her story.

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More people are going to college than ever before, but a lot of them aren't finishing. Low-income students, in particular, struggle to get to graduation. Only 9 percent complete a bachelor's degree by age 24. Why are so many students quitting, and what leads a few to beat the odds and make it through?

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Books about Grit, Passion, Resilience, and Perseverance for Teens

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Books about Grit, Passion, Resilience, and Perseverance for Teens

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When it comes to parenting and educating my kids, one of the things I want to do is give them the skills they need to tackle anything that comes at them in life. Some those skills include grit, passion, resilience, perseverance and a belief in their own capabilities. One of the ways I hope to instill these skills in my children is through quality books, both fiction and non-fiction, that will help illustrate these skills, how to apply them and how they look in real life. Below I've gathered up some books that I hope will inspire and teach my children.

BOOKS TO EMPOWER TEENS TO BE RESILIENT THROUGH THE TOUGH STUFF
Disclaimer: This post contains commission and affiliate links.
When it comes to teens there is such a diversity in their mental growth over the years. No one will argue that a 13 year old has a very different mindset and view of the world than a 19 year old. At 19 we are very much into young adulthood. And let's face it, some 13 year olds are still incredibly young mentally, while others have already started taking the weight of the world onto their shoulders.

When teaching life skills it is important that we ensure we are teaching where the person is at in their maturity and growth. I've provided a large variety of materials here so there is something for everyone. Just remember, if you provide your child with one of these books and they really don't get "into it", don't fret, try a different one and put the original one away for a future day.

One of my biggest tips for using these books effectively with teens is for you to read them yourself first before giving them to your teen. One of the big things most teens want is to feel like they are being heard and understood. For them to really internalize these concepts they will likely want to talk about them with you. So make sure you have done your homework and can be an intelligent and informed participant in those discussions.

A lot of these books are available as audiobooks too! You can also find lots of them on Hoopla where you can check them out for free with your library card.

Teaching Books To Help Teens Master Resilience, Perseverance and Grit

These are books that explicitly set out to teach important life skills to the reader. Often they include exercises and activities to help readers understand the lessons being taught. Often called a self-help book, these books are a great way to bring these lessons in teens lives in a more formal way.

Non-Fiction True Story Books That Educate Teens About Grit and Resilience

Non-fiction books are a great way to see how real life people used important skills like grit, resilience, passion and perseverance to get through incredibly hard situations. These stories are true stories and with that comes a sense of truth and immediacy that can really resonate with teens. Where available I have included various versions of stories, such as an adult and young adult version.

Fiction Books To Teach Life Skills To Teens

To teach, a book doesn't need to be a textbook or workbook, or the real life story of some amazing person. Some of the greatest lessons we learn can come from fiction books with fictional characters. Where we can be truly immersed in the world, emotions and thoughts of the characters. Modeling strong life skills in books is a great way to help teens see these skills at work and learn how they can adapt them into their own lives. And let's face it, lots of teens prefer fiction books that are so completely different from what they normally read at school.

Where available I have included unit study and teacher resources to help with adapting these books for lessons.

Happy Reading!

MORE FOR TEENS

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Books about Grit, Passion, Resilience and Perseverance for Teens

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True story, fiction and self help books to teach teens about grit and resilience. Empower teens with the life skills to face anything.

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Famous people and the perseverance | 2.59 mins will change your life forever | Full HD

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PBS KIDS Talk About: Perseverance | PBS LearningMedia

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Real families sit down with PBS KIDS to have real conversations about how they keep going when school, sports or even learning how to ride a bike is hard. They also discuss when it’s okay to give up and try something new.
NOTE: Closed captions are also available in Spanish.

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Grit Curriculum Lesson: The Perseverance Walk

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Grit Curriculum Lesson: The Perseverance Walk

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Grit Curriculum Lesson: The Perseverance Walk

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Kids Book Read Aloud: I Choose to Try Again

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Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

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Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

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Grit: The power of passion and perseverance

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Leaving a high-flying job in consulting, Angela Lee Duckworth took a job teaching math to seventh graders in a New York public school. She quickly realized that IQ wasn’t the only thing separating the successful students from those who struggled. Here, she explains her theory of “grit” as a predictor of success.

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Build Character Build Success: Perseverance!

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Build Character Build Success: Perseverance!

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Build Character Build Success: PERSEVERANCE

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How to Foster Grit, Tenacity, and Perseverance

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How to Foster Grit, Tenacity, and Perseverance

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Edutopia blogger Andrew Miller considers ‘grit’ as a 21st century skill encompassing real-world qualities like determination, adaptability and reflection, and suggests five steps to foster this mindset in the classroom.

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20 Greatest Children's Books About Perseverance and Grit

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20 Greatest Children's Books About Perseverance and Grit

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20 Greatest Children’s Books About Perseverance And Grit

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Check out these new children’s books about perseverance and grit. All you need to teach perseverance stress-free and easy!

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True Grit: The Best Measure of Success and How to Teach It

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True Grit: The Best Measure of Success and How to Teach It

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Can you predict academic success or whether a child will graduate? You can, but not how you might think.

When psychologist Angela Duckworth studied people in various challenging situations, including National Spelling Bee participants, rookie teachers in tough neighborhoods, and West Point cadets, she found:

One characteristic emerged as a significant predictor of success. And it wasn't social intelligence. It wasn't good looks, physical health, and it wasn't IQ. It was grit.

Why is Grit So Important?

Using the Grit Scale that Duckworth developed with Chris Peterson, they found that grit is a better indicator of GPA and graduation rates. (IQ, however, is very predictive of standardized test scores.)

Add to this the findings (from Bowen, Chingos and McPherson's Crossing the Finish Line) that high school grades have a more predictive value of college success than standardized tests, and you may just see a shift from standardized test scores to high school GPA by some college admissions officers. As GPA becomes more important, grit will become more recognized as a vital part of 21st century student success -- as well it should be.

What is Grit?

Some would argue that grit is inherent in Albert Bandura's research on self-efficacy, and that resilience is also part of it. But you can't just implement "character education" and think you're teaching grit. In 2008, the Character Education Partnership divided character into two categories: core ethical values and performance values. In my opinion, grit would be categorized as a performance value.

Can Grit be Taught?

Here are 11 ways that I'm tackling grit in my classroom and school.
1. Read Books About Grit
Read books, hold book studies and discuss trends. Measuring noncognitive factors like grit will be controversial, but just because we struggle to measure it doesn't mean that we can stop trying.
Book Reading List: Trend Reading:

KIPP's Character Report Card

Promoting Grit, Tenacity, and Perseverance: Critical Factors for Success in the 21st Century (PDF) by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Technology

2. Talk About Grit
First, I give my students the grit scale test and let them score it. Then we watch Angela Duckworth's TED video together and talk about the decisions we make that impact grit. Empower students to educate themselves -- they can't wait for educators to figure this out.
3. Share Examples
In my ninth grade classroom, January starts with a video about John Foppe, born with no arms, who excelled as an honor student, drove his own car, and became a successful psychologist and speaker while creatively using his feet. We also talk to Westwood alum Scott Rigsby, the first double amputee to complete an Ironman competition. These are gritty people. Life is hard, and luck is an illusion.
4. Help Students Develop a Growth Mindset
Carol Dweck from Stanford University teaches us that students who have a growth mindset are more successful than those who think that intelligence is fixed. (See David Hochheiser's post Growth Mindset: A Driving Philosophy, Not Just a Tool.)
5. Reframe Problems
Using stories and examples from Malcom Gladwell's book David and Goliath, we talk about "desirable difficulties." Students need perspective about problems to prevent them from giving up, quitting or losing hope.
6. Find a Framework
I use Angela Maiers' Classroom Habitudes as my framework. The KIPP framework specifically includes grit as one of its seven traits. Find one that works for your school and includes clear performance values.
7. Live Grittily
You teach with your life. Perhaps that is why Randy Pausch's Last Lecture and David Menasche's Priority List resonate. These teachers used their own battle with death itself as a way to teach. But you don't have to die to be an effective teacher. Our own work ethic yells so loudly that kids know exactly what we think about grit.
8. Foster Safe Circumstances That Encourage Grit
Never mistake engaging, fun or even interesting for easy. We don't jump up and down when we tear off a piece of tape because "I did it." No one celebrates easy, but everyone celebrates championships and winners because those take grit (and more). We need more circumstances to help kids to develop grit before they can "have it."

Tough academic requirements, sports and outdoor opportunities are all ways to provide opportunities for developing grit. Verena Roberts, Chief Innovation Officer of CANeLearn says:

One of the best ways to learn about grit is to focus on outdoor education and go out into the wild. Grit is about not freaking out, taking a deep breath, and moving on.

9. Help Students Develop Intentional Habits
Read about best practices for creating habits, because habits and self-control require grit.
10. Acknowledge the Sacrifice Grit Requires
Grit takes time, and many students aren't giving it. In their 2010 paper " The Falling Time Cost of College", Babcock and Marks demonstrate that, in 1961, U.S. undergraduates studied 24 hours a week outside of class. In 1981, that fell to 20 hours, and in 2003, it was 14 hours per week. This is not to create a blame or generation gap discussion, but rather to point out the cost of being well educated. We are what we do, and if we study less and work less, then we will learn less.
11. Discuss When You Need Grit and When You Need to Quit
Grit is not without controversy. Alfie Kohn has some valid points in his criticism of grit. So read and discuss the opponents of grit in class.

In particular, I agree with the point that there is a time for grit and a time to quit. There are times when it's OK to quit something that just isn't within your range of talents, or when trying something different may enrich your life. Worthy tasks deserve persistence. But there are tasks that would be worthier in a different season of your life. There are jobs that should be left. Sometimes you have to let go of something good to grasp something great. Students need discernment to know when they need grit and when it may be a time to quit.
Educators Need Grit

Now we as teachers just need the grit to do whatever it takes to turn education around, and that starts with hard work and our own modern version of true grit. Teaching it and living it is now front and center in the education conversation.

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True Grit: The Best Measure of Success and How to Teach It

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Can you predict academic success or whether a child will graduate? You can, but not how you might think. When psychologist Angela Duckworth studied people in various challenging situations, including National Spelling Bee participants, rookie teachers in tough neighborhoods, and West Point cadets, she found: One characteristic emerged as a significant predictor of success.

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Three Ways to Foster Student Perseverance

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Three Ways to Foster Student Perseverance

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Full Text

Originally posted August 22, 2013 on Scholastic EduBlog

When it comes to motivation, your belief in your ability is more important than your actual ability. When we hit an obstacle in math or science or reading, we don't pick ourselves up and try again unless we believe our next effort has a chance of success. If we want students to persevere, we need to build their confidence along with their competence. Here are three things you can do to help foster this resilience:

Set the expectation for struggle. Consider these two introductions to a math problem: "Let's start with an easy one" vs "This might take a few tries." What happens to the student who can't readily do the "easy one"? He's done for the day. What's the point of trying something that isn't "easy"? On the other hand, the student who expects that the problem will "take a few tries" comes out feeling okay no matter what. If she gets it right away, it feels like a big win. If she struggles, it's no big deal; it was supposed to take a few tries.

Give them a running start. Students with a history of failure expect to fail, so they often stop trying. Telling them to keep trying is nice encouragement, but why should they believe you? They need evidence of their capability. So walk them back a few steps. Give them tasks along the learning progression that they already know how to do. Or scaffold these early steps so that they build some confidence. Don't spend too much time asking them to do what they already know; it gets boring. Quickly get them to their edge of their abilities, but with the belief, supported by their early successes, that achievement is possible.

Show progress. Seeing that your effort is paying off is very motivating, particularly when a milestone is in sight. Create a visible pathway through the learning you expect students to achieve. Then show each student how he or she is moving along that pathway. Put markers along the pathway so that achievement can be reached and celebrated incrementally. "Wins" are very motivating, so it's okay to have several of them along the learning path.

We're looking to share insights like these about perseverance, resilience, and growth mindsets across the country. And I've teamed with a couple of colleagues from Mindset Works and the University of Memphis to propose a session at the SXSW 2014 Education Conference in Austin. The conference uses crowdsourcing to help evaluate, refine, and select proposals for the conference program. Please take a moment to comment and vote for our proposal.

©Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Reprinted with permission.

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Three ways to foster student perseverance

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Originally posted August 22, 2013 on Scholastic EduBlog

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Minute to Win It Perseverance Lesson Plan

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Minute to Win It Perseverance Lesson Plan

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Practice perseverance | Try a New Strategy | 3-5 | ISTE Student Standards

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Strategies to Help Students Develop Academic Perseverance

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Strategies to Help Students Develop Academic Perseverance

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Strategies To Help Students Develop Academic Perseverance

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We know that learning is hard work. Whether we are learning how to manage our finances, speak a new language, or cook a different cuisine, we know we are going to encounter challenges and setbacks. Luckily, as adults, we…

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Common Sense Media editors help you choose Movies That Promote Perseverance. Help kids learn the value of sticking with something, no matter what challenges they face.

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Developing character strengths and life skills is essential to kids' overall growth and success. These TV shows help kids learn the value of sticking with something no matter what challenges they face. Perseverance, determination, grit, resilience -- all are positive traits that help kids succeed in life. Watching TV shows that celebrate these elements can inspire kids to pursue their dreams, even when things get tough. The character strength of perseverance surfaces in these shows by being intrinsic to the story and being repeated several times in the actions of a lead character, and it "wins" over character flaws such as apathy. (See even more movies and TV shows that promote perseverance.)

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Common Sense Media editors help you choose TV That Promotes Perseverance. Help kids learn the value of sticking with something, no matter what challenges they face.

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Teaching Grit: How to Help Students Overcome Inner Obstacles

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Teaching Grit: How to Help Students Overcome Inner Obstacles

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Carol Dweck's work on mindsets is a well-known example of how our beliefs about our own learning affect our success. So if you're already teaching these mindsets to your students, keep doing it! But teachers who want to go even deeper into how thoughts affect actions might consider teaching students about optimism.

Teaching Optimism

Amy Lyon, the teacher in the grit video above, created a yearlong grit curriculum based on Martin Seligman's book The Optimistic Child. Pointing to years of research, Seligman argues that optimism is a skill that can be taught by changing how we view the setbacks we encounter in life. He also notes that parents and teachers must model and teach these skills, because children learn either pessimism or optimism from the adults in their lives.

To teach optimism, Lyon instructs students to become aware of their thoughts through a tool called a " grit pie." The pie itself represents a student's obstacle, and each slice represents a realistic cause of the problem. Students analyze whether their thoughts about the problem are permanent ("I stink at math and will never get good at it") or temporary ("I was distracted by my friends"), and whether they blame themselves ("I didn't ask for help when I was confused by my math assignment") or others ("the teacher doesn't like me") for the problem. Ideally, students' thoughts are temporary, and they take at least some personal responsibility for the problem -- both of which make positive change much easier.

Working with Emotions

Teach students how to work with their emotions. Just changing their thoughts is sometimes not enough for students, particularly if they tend to get anxious, appear depressed, or come from a traumatic home environment. For example, when a student with a permanent belief of failure faces an obstacle, emotions such as fear, despair or anger may arise so quickly that there's no time for changing his or her thinking to fend off the emotion. Thus, the student has been emotionally hijacked and needs to calm the emotions first and foremost.

To help these students, educators should first teach them to recognize and label emotional responses so that they become aware when their emotions are spinning out of control, followed by methods for calming difficult emotions. Research has shown that deep breathing and mindfulness practice are both very effective methods for regulating emotions.

Once students have calmed down, educators can help them "cognitively reappraise" the situation -- as taught in Seligman's book -- in order to change the thoughts and beliefs that caused the negative emotion.

Regulating Difficult Emotions

Emotion researchers have found cognitive reappraisal to be the ideal method for regulating difficult emotions. The other way people regulate their emotions is through suppression -- and teachers need to be aware of students who might be doing this, gritty or not. Emotion suppression means just that: pushing away rather than dealing with difficult thoughts and emotions. Long-term suppression can lead to increased negative emotions, anxiety and depression, as well as fewer close relationships and social support. Researchers have also found that emotional suppression is higher among adolescents than adults.

People who appear to have high levels of grit may actually be using emotion suppression to get through the tough obstacles, particularly if attaining goals is seen as a way to survive ("I have to get into an Ivy League college, otherwise my parents will think I'm a bad person") rather than thrive.

Building Resilience

Helping students cultivate positive emotions will also increase their ability to bounce back from obstacles and the negative emotions that often ensue. For example, researchers have found that highly resilient children use humor as a way to deal with stressful situations. Humor not only fosters positive emotions, it also connects us to others, thereby helping us to maintain positive social support networks -- which we all need when going for those long-term goals.

Sharing positive events with each other can also give students a boost in positive emotions. If students dwell on or savor a positive event, then they are more likely to recall that event -- along with the associated positive emotions -- in difficult times. Savoring has been found to not only give us a boost in well-being, but also to broaden our thinking, making us better problem-solvers.

Deepening Self-Awareness

Perhaps one of the unseen benefits of teaching these "grit skills" is that students will also gain a better understanding of who they are as human beings. And hopefully along the way, they will develop more empathy and compassion for those around them who may be struggling to reach a goal -- making everyone a winner in the end.

More Resources for Teaching Grit

Get the embed code, links to downloadable video files, and more resources for Edutopia's grit overview video, " Teaching Grit Cultivates Resilience and Perseverance," embedded above, or read a one-sheet overview of Amy Lyon's grit curriculum.
Editor's Note: This is the second of two parts. The previous post is "Teaching Grit: Social and Emotional Truth."

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Teaching Grit: How to Help Students Overcome Inner Obstacles | Edutopia

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Carol Dweck's work on mindsets is a well-known example of how our beliefs about our own learning affect our success. So if you're already teaching these mindsets to your students, keep doing it! But teachers who want to go even deeper into how thoughts affect actions might consider teaching students about optimism.