When Grit Is Not Enough

"The first time I heard a preschooler explaining a classmate’s disruptive behavior, I was surprised at how adult her four-year-old voice sounded," wrote Aisha Sultan. "Her classmate 'doesn’t know how to sit still and listen,' she said to me, while I sat at the snack table with them. He couldn’t learn because he couldn’t follow directions, she explained, as if she had recently completed a behavioral assessment on him.

"This precocious little girl talked about her classmate matter-of-factly and without any malice…What the little girl didn’t know about her classmate was that his family life was chaotic, without consistent routines or caregivers. He had suffered some traumas at home, which showed in his behavior at school.

"I was reminded of this conversation during Tyrone C. Howard’s presentation on how student culture affects learning. 'We are asking students to change a belief system without changing the situation around them,' he said. It can be irresponsible and unfair to talk about grit without talking about structural challenges... So, what are those challenges?"

These are just a few Howard cites:

• "7 out of 30 live in poverty...
• 1 out of 30 are homeless;
• 6 out of 30 are victims of abuse."

Sultan goes on to explain: "Howard said that exposure to trauma has a profound impact on cognitive development and academic outcomes, and schools and teachers are woefully unprepared to contend with these realities. Children dealing with traumatic situations should not be seen as pathological…Instead, educators need to recognize the resilience they are showing already."

Source: "When Grit Isn’t Enough," by Aisha Sultan, November 30, 2015. Education Writers Association. 

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