Research, Research, and More Research (Feb. 5th - Feb. 10th)

This first week is dedicated to gathering sources and deepening my knowledge of Grit.

So far, I've come across of interesting studies. For example, I recently found a whole plethora or articles and periodicals about how socioeconomic status affects grit and what can be done to combat this.

Apparently, since children in poorer communities are more likely to be prone to increased stress and traumatic experiences, this often decreases their grit. However, in a study, researchers found that using a specific teaching style, known as growth mindset could mitigate this. This idea of teaching with a growth mindset is very interesting and I'm hanging on to it for future research.

The theory argues that there are two different types of mindsets we should be concerned with, static and growth. A static mindset is when someone views that their intelligence is fixed and is reinforced by statements like "You're smart" or "You're dumb." However, a growth mindset focuses on the idea that intelligence is not fixed and can be increased through hard work and trial and error.

This has obvious implications in the classroom. The next question I want to find the answer to is if this mindset is taught early in school (middle school) do kids retain this and does it follow them throughout their lives.

Anyways, I've got a lot more research to sift through to find what I'm looking for, but everything I have so far looks promising.