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nathday 's review for:
Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance
by Angela Duckworth
I think that perhaps experiencing this as an audiobook helped me to empathize a little more than if it'd been a book, there are points in the book where she is rather braggadocious, but in all honesty, in my opinion, if you work hard, you should be allowed to brag a little. I also don't think she does it egregiously, it's to help translate the core message of the book. The cadence in her tone over the audio translates it in the right ways but can imagine reading this and rolling my eyes a little.
There are two main things with this book and its argument, one being that she looks at this through a very able-bodied, privileged lens, both counting and discounting privileges in upbringing, what she calls 'wise parenting' compared to more authoritarian or distant, tying this to studies about learned helplessness coming from a childhood of a less stable parental structure, where this leads into later life. However, there is then the idea that you can just "not let the bad things get you down" and crack on. It feels evident that she is someone who has not toiled with any serious bouts of mental illness and is neurotypical, this is written for the people the system already works for in a lot of ways.
The 'Grit' scale she has created is rather binary in its viewpoint, with no consideration for people with neurodivergence, my score came to 3.30, which is 'higher than 30% of American adults', the idea that my tendency towards hard work or what she calls 'grit' is in the bottom third of Americans is laughable. I think that I have a very good work ethic and a tendency to work hard for the goals I aim to realize, and others who know me I'm sure would attest to this. What she doesn't account for in a lot of her rather general questions, things like "New ideas and projects sometimes distract me from previous ones", yes? As someone with ADHD, my brain is consistently jumping from one project to another, I think I have honed a practice of being good at seeing things through but my brain chemistry is quite simply different to that of hers and her test subjects. What I think this does is promote a dangerous mentality toward young children who may not have yet been diagnosed with the idea that they 'don't have the right stuff'. If I think about myself doing this test at a much younger age, it would have destroyed my already highly struggling self-worth in the education system.
I think that her heart is entirely in the right place and with some more intersectional, or diverse perspectives, it could be a much more well-rounded argument. In no way did I find this revelationary but in all honesty, after doing the grit scale at the beginning of the book (and being so annoyed I wanted to give up on the book) I found there to be some rather interesting research or narratives within this, particularly the comparison between a more probing and mindful practice, compared to flow states. Grit Scale 2/10. Book 7/10
There are two main things with this book and its argument, one being that she looks at this through a very able-bodied, privileged lens, both counting and discounting privileges in upbringing, what she calls 'wise parenting' compared to more authoritarian or distant, tying this to studies about learned helplessness coming from a childhood of a less stable parental structure, where this leads into later life. However, there is then the idea that you can just "not let the bad things get you down" and crack on. It feels evident that she is someone who has not toiled with any serious bouts of mental illness and is neurotypical, this is written for the people the system already works for in a lot of ways.
The 'Grit' scale she has created is rather binary in its viewpoint, with no consideration for people with neurodivergence, my score came to 3.30, which is 'higher than 30% of American adults', the idea that my tendency towards hard work or what she calls 'grit' is in the bottom third of Americans is laughable. I think that I have a very good work ethic and a tendency to work hard for the goals I aim to realize, and others who know me I'm sure would attest to this. What she doesn't account for in a lot of her rather general questions, things like "New ideas and projects sometimes distract me from previous ones", yes? As someone with ADHD, my brain is consistently jumping from one project to another, I think I have honed a practice of being good at seeing things through but my brain chemistry is quite simply different to that of hers and her test subjects. What I think this does is promote a dangerous mentality toward young children who may not have yet been diagnosed with the idea that they 'don't have the right stuff'. If I think about myself doing this test at a much younger age, it would have destroyed my already highly struggling self-worth in the education system.
I think that her heart is entirely in the right place and with some more intersectional, or diverse perspectives, it could be a much more well-rounded argument. In no way did I find this revelationary but in all honesty, after doing the grit scale at the beginning of the book (and being so annoyed I wanted to give up on the book) I found there to be some rather interesting research or narratives within this, particularly the comparison between a more probing and mindful practice, compared to flow states. Grit Scale 2/10. Book 7/10