Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance | Angela Lee Duckworth | TED

Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance | Angela Lee Duckworth | TED

The Journey from Consulting to Teaching

The speaker discusses transitioning from a demanding job in management consulting to teaching seventh-grade math in New York City public schools, emphasizing the importance of understanding students' learning needs.

Transitioning Careers

  • IQ not sole determinant of student success; emphasizes the need for hard work and perseverance.
  • Believes all students can learn with effort; stresses the importance of understanding students' motivations and psychology.

Pursuing Psychology for Deeper Understanding

The speaker delves into the limitations of measuring success solely through IQ and highlights the significance of psychological factors in education.

Importance of Psychological Perspective

  • Conducted studies at various challenging settings to identify predictors of success.
  • Grit emerges as a key predictor, surpassing social intelligence, looks, physical health, and IQ.

Unpacking Grit: Passion and Perseverance

Grit is introduced as a crucial trait for achieving long-term goals, emphasizing stamina and dedication over time.

Characteristics of Grit

  • Research on high school juniors shows grittier students more likely to graduate.
  • Grit's relevance extends beyond specific contexts like West Point or spelling bees to everyday educational settings.

Building Grit in Students

The speaker addresses the challenge of cultivating grit in children and explores potential strategies such as growth mindset.

Cultivating Grit

  • Talent alone does not equate to grit; many talented individuals lack perseverance.
Video description

Visit http://TED.com to get our entire library of TED Talks, transcripts, translations, personalized talk recommendations and more. 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. The TED Talks channel features the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and more. You're welcome to link to or embed these videos, forward them to others and share these ideas with people you know. Follow TED on Twitter: http://twitter.com/TEDTalks Like TED on Facebook: http://facebook.com/TED Subscribe to our channel: http://youtube.com/TED TED's videos may be used for non-commercial purposes under a Creative Commons License, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives (or the CC BY – NC – ND 4.0 International) and in accordance with our TED Talks Usage Policy (https://www.ted.com/about/our-organization/our-policies-terms/ted-talks-usage-policy). For more information on using TED for commercial purposes (e.g. employee learning, in a film or online course), please submit a Media Request at https://media-requests.ted.com