IN THE NEWS: Teaching Character in Our Schools
Head of Upper School Tim Delehaunty writes a Letter to the Editor to the New York Times in response to an Op-Talk article, “Smarts vs. Personality in School” (Sunday Review, Jan. 11).
To the Editor:
Your Op-Talk article gets at so much of what happens to educational ideals and initiatives. They morph and ultimately fade. The focus on grit since the psychologist Angela Duckworth’s 2007 research, which is rightly cited as an igniter of the recent focus on noncognitive skills, swung a pendulum that may be poised to swing back. But it shouldn’t.
And if schools learn to teach beyond grit alone, it won’t. The best schools are already pairing grit (or more eloquently, resilience) alongside other character skills like creativity, teamwork, ethics, curiosity and time management.
When it comes to developing children in this way, we don’t simply want a swinging pendulum; we need schools to function like clockwork.
TIM DELEHAUNTY
New Canaan, Conn., Jan. 13, 2015
New Canaan, Conn., Jan. 13, 2015
The writer is head of the Upper School at New Canaan Country School.
New Canaan Country School
New Canaan Country School admits students of any race, color, national and ethnic origin and are afforded all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, age, sex, sexual orientation, national origin or ancestry, or disability in administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, financial aid policies or any other school-administered programs.
