Starting at a young age, our kids can easily fall into the trap that intelligence is what you are born with. Ask any Grade 2 student, and they can tell you who the smart kids are in class. By the idea that success (and therefore one’s contribution to society) is predetermined by an IQ test or an A-plus in math is self-defeating. What’s more, it’s wrong. Sure, being clever is a boon in life – but so is being born into a country of opportunity where close to 50 per cent of the population goes on to college or university. But that’s not what really determines success – in the end, as a new book has reminded us, it’s an old-fashioned quality. It’s the ability to face failure and start over. To take a chance when you know it might not work out. To keep trying. The word for it: grit. Canadian journalist Peter Tough has detailed some of the research in a new book called How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character.
What does that means for us in the church? It means we can do well to stress the lessons around grit that are taught in the gospel. In fact, it’s no stretch: Jesus was all about facing adversity and carrying on. He chose as his closest companions people who weren’t getting A-pluses in society, and they became great leaders in their own right. In fact, the power of perservance – the ability to restart, the faith to face a challenge – is one of the main lessons we get from the gospel. In church and at home, we can even talk about our personal experiences with failure and what we learned from it. Because the true test of strong leaders is not the ability to savour victory, but to soar again after a loss. That is the lesson of faith. And it is in our hands to teach it.
If you want to read more about the book, here’s an article that ran a couple weeks ago in the Globe and Mail:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/parenting/back-to-school/why-kids-need-to-fail-to-succeed-in-school/article4513436/
What does that means for us in the church? It means we can do well to stress the lessons around grit that are taught in the gospel. In fact, it’s no stretch: Jesus was all about facing adversity and carrying on. He chose as his closest companions people who weren’t getting A-pluses in society, and they became great leaders in their own right. In fact, the power of perservance – the ability to restart, the faith to face a challenge – is one of the main lessons we get from the gospel. In church and at home, we can even talk about our personal experiences with failure and what we learned from it. Because the true test of strong leaders is not the ability to savour victory, but to soar again after a loss. That is the lesson of faith. And it is in our hands to teach it.
If you want to read more about the book, here’s an article that ran a couple weeks ago in the Globe and Mail:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/parenting/back-to-school/why-kids-need-to-fail-to-succeed-in-school/article4513436/
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