GRIT

Part of what I have learned in being involved in education is that there are always new buzzwords popping up and GRIT has become one of them.  Some people are referring to grit as an individual's ability to stick with something, perseverance.  But another group has actually turned the word "grit" into an acronym-GRIT stands for Guts, Resilience, Integrity, and Tenacity.  And then, a rubric was actually created to assess a student's GRIT.

Why does it matter that teachers in Alpine School District are using a GRIT rubric for grading?

Because instead of grading a child in math as to whether or not they are mastering the material, they are being graded on personality traits.  Instead of grading a child in English as to whether or not they can define onomatopoeia, they are being graded on their integrity or their guts, completely subjective ideas that are almost impossible to measure. 

One of the rubric pieces that chaps my hide is under Resilience:  "I put my absolute maximum effort into every single thing I do."  I want you to think about that for a minute.  That's a pretty tall order-maximum effort.  Honestly, there are days when I am phoning it in.  Days when I am tired or dealing with heavy stress or worried about medical test results, and I am just doing what I have to do to get through a day.  And I am an adult with resources.  Now imagine having a child who is homeless fill out that survey and have their grade be contingent on their responses.  Maybe they are not giving their maximum effort because they are hungry or worrying about where they are going to sleep.  Now what about the child whose parents are getting divorced?  Maybe she is finding her thoughts drifting in class because she is wondering what Christmas will look like and will she have to deal with 2 families and step-parents.  Or what about the child who is living with a parent dealing with substance abuse issues.  Maybe instead of maximum effort, he is worried about getting home before his younger siblings in case mom has overdosed.

When did we worry about measuring everything?  The idea that one child is worth more, valued more, scored higher because of personality traits teeters into seriously dangerous territory.

Some of the rubrics are tainted against introverts.  Should a child get a lower grade because they are more introspective and less likely to demonstrate leadership skills?  Should a child be punished for not demonstrating a "strong sense of self?"

One of my concerns with the GRIT movement is that it takes kids who are in difficult situations, kids who are at risk, and puts them at greater risk.  By penalizing them for their circumstances through their grades, we are setting up these children to receive lower grades, fail, and drop out of school.  Because we don't see "maximum effort."  School should be a safe place to fall for traumatized kids, not another place where they are seen as less than.

At first glance, we could even say that encouraging the aspects of GRIT like resiliency and integrity are great-of course we want our children to develop those attributes.  But those traits are extremely subjective.  It is one thing for a child to score poorly because they are struggling with mastering exponents or diagramming sentences.  But it is a completely different thing for a child to get a lower grade because who they are at their core is lacking.  I am not getting a poor grade because I cannot master subject-verb agreement, but because I lack integrity.  What a powerfully damaging message to send to our children.  Who should decide if your child has integrity?  A rubric?  

In this age of high stakes testing, accountability at all costs, and school grades, we are forgetting that our goal is educating children.  We are giving them resources to be successful in life, to pursue their passions, to become lifelong learners.  Accountability systems like the GRIT rubric are ways in which we are separating out children and telling them who they are is not good enough.  And we are breaking them.