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activities
, as
much as anything else in my record, that he found evidence that I’d prepared myself for the rigors—
and opportunities—of college.
“My sense, from being in admissions for over forty years,” Bill concluded, “is that most people
are born with tremendous potential. The real question is whether they’re encouraged to employ their
good old-fashioned hard work and their grit, if you will, to its maximum. In the end, those are the
people who seem to be the most successful.”
I pointed out that extracurricular follow-through might be a mere signal of grit, rather than
something that would develop it. Bill agreed, but reaffirmed his judgment that activities aren’t
just
a
signal. His intuition was that following through on hard things teaches a young person powerful,
transferable lessons. “You’re learning from others, you’re finding out more and more through
experience what your priorities are, you’re developing character.
“In some cases,” Bill continued, “students get into activities because somebody else, maybe the
parent, maybe the counselor, suggests it. But what often happens is that these experiences are actually
transformative
, and the students actually learn something very important, and then they jump in and
contribute to these activities in ways that they and their parents and their counselor never would’ve
imagined.”
What surprised me most about my conversation with Bill was how much he worried about the kids
who’d been denied the opportunity to practice grit in extracurricular activities.
“More and more high schools have diminished or eliminated arts and music and other activities,”
Bill told me, and then explained that, of course, it was primarily schools serving poor kids who were
making these cuts. “It’s the least level playing field one could possibly imagine.”
Research by Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam and his collaborators reveals that affluent
American high school students have been participating in extracurricular activities at consistently
high rates for the past few decades. In contrast, participation among poor students has been dropping
precipitously.
The widening gap in extracurricular participation between rich and poor has a few contributing
factors, Putnam explains. Pay-to-play sports activities like traveling soccer teams are one obstacle to
equal participation. Even when participation is “free,” not all parents can afford the uniforms. Not all
parents are able or willing to drive their kids to and from practices and games. For music, the cost of
private lessons and instruments can be prohibitive.
Just as Putnam would have predicted, there is a worrisome correlation between family income and
Grit Grid scores. On average, Grit Grid scores for the high school seniors in our sample who
qualified for federally subsidized meals were a full point lower than those for students who were
more privileged.
Like Robert Putnam, Geoffrey Canada is a Harvard-trained social scientist.
Geoff is about as gritty as they come. His passion is enabling kids growing up in poverty to realize
their potential. Recently, Geoff has become something of a celebrity. But for decades he toiled in
relative obscurity as the director of a radically intensive education program in New York City called
the Harlem Children’s Zone. The first kids to make it all the way through are now in college, and the
program’s unusually comprehensive approach, coupled with unusually successful results, has
attracted national attention.
A few years ago, Geoff came to Penn to deliver our commencement speech. I managed to shoehorn
a private meeting into his busy schedule. Given our limited time, I got straight to the point.
“I know you’re trained as a social scientist,” I began. “And I know there are things we have tons of
evidence for and aren’t doing in education, and there are things we have no evidence for and keep
doing anyway. But I want to know, from all you’ve seen and done, what you
really
think is the way to
dig kids out of poverty.”
Geoff sat forward and put his hands together like he was about to pray. “I’ll tell you straight. I’m a
father of four. I’ve watched many, many kids who were not my own grow up. I may not have the
random-assignment, double-blind studies to prove it, but I can tell you what poor kids need. They
need all the things you and I give to our own children. What poor kids need is a lot. But you can sum
it up by saying that what they need is a decent childhood.”
About a year later, Geoff gave a TED talk, and I was lucky enough to be in the audience. Much of
what Harlem Children’s Zone did, Canada explained, was based on rock-solid scientific evidence—
preschool education, for instance, and summer enrichment activities. But there’s one thing his
program provided without sufficient scientific evidence to justify the expense: extracurricular
activities.
“You know why?” he asked. “Because I actually like kids.”
The audience laughed, and he said it again:
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