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Vanessa Cheang
Kiffen Dorsch
English 101
10 January 2017
Explore, And Then Focus: A Response to Kohn’s “The Downside of ‘Grit’: What Really
Happens When Kids Are Pushed to Be More Persistent?”
In “The Downside of ‘Grit’: What Really Happens When Kids Are Pushed to Be
More Persistent?” the new trend in education which promotes grit is the most important
factor for kids to succeed is questioned by Alfie Kohn, a American author and lecturer,
writing in the Washington Post. He introduces the old trend in education that there are
different factors for children to succeed such as emotional intelligence. He further writes
about one of the factors – grit by citing the argument of Paul Tough, a Canadian-American
writer and broadcaster, and Angela Duckworth, an American psychologist. He uses
Duckworth’s words in to define grit as “the tendency to sustain perseverance and passion for
challenging long-term goals”. However, he attacks that there are actually many problems
with grit. Kohn argues that everyone has their choices to persist for goals which can be
“counterproductive and even unhealthy” (par 9). Kohn questions the motive for grit that
whether kids are persisting for goals which they love, they want to show their ability or they
feel familiar and comfortable with, so that they are afraid of changing a new and unfamiliar
goal. He also critiques Duckworth’s study which is emphasizing on conformity than any other
traits that can help in success such as creativity. Meanwhile, he attacks another study of
Duckworth which emphasized specialization instead of exploring different interests and
talents. Furthermore, Kohn also disagrees with the argument of Tough that there are actually
variety of valuable agency to help disadvantaged children to succeed such as “larger policies
and institutions” (par 22). Kohn satirizes about the context of classroom expectation from
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Duckworth and some educators are expecting students to persist for unclear motives and
become more and more conformist. Although Kohn fails to discern that kids’ love is affected
by their surrounding environment and the opportunities given to them, he is partially right
that kids should explore for their interest, and he advocates efficaciously that agency is much
more important than just being gritty.
Kohn criticizes that the unsure motives for kids to being grit. He questions that
whether kids really love that they are doing, or they are just got used to what they are doing
and are scared of changing. However, I disagree with Kohn because he overlooks the deeper
