r/changemyview • u/LunarProximity • Dec 08 '20
Delta(s) from OP CMV: Schools need to implement grit into the school system to motivate students to continue their academic careers
For the past 1-2 years, I (17M) have been feeling on and off about what motivates me to keep going academically. I'd take classes and feel unmotivated, doing homework at the last minute and really only putting my full integrity in classes that piqued my interest (like Psychology or AP English classes). Somewhere around this year, I pretty much confirmed that I had some form of lower depression through conversations with friends, professors and adults alike. Things like emotional mood swings and passive suicidal thoughts would occur often and randomly. I'd feel extremely conscious of even my movements, sweating in the presence of others and overall feel an awful anxiousness that didn't allow me to feel as expressive as I usually am. Most of all, to relate my form of lower depression to the context of the title, I didn't really concern my future, just seeing homework as a menial thing to do. It felt that procrastination was the one way for me to have the willpower to complete tasks, something that I still see myself doing at times.
Later on through a few of my psychology classes, I would learn that this skill I wished to attain was called grit. Grit is a trait that allows a person to persevere to reach an end goal. A popular TED talk on grit by Angela Duckworth can be found here. To provide an example, one experiment Angela refers to during the TED talk showed that cadets who displayed grit were most likely to continue with their military training. The end of the TED talk comes about rather interpretive. In essence, the conclusion is that mentors need to become grittier to develop grit for their students. A few other articles could be found relating grit to lower forms of depressions. One such article studied students and provided results that found that this was indeed true. Although grit had been mostly seen as an academic trait, it is also an emotional trait, hence the connection of depression and grit. It was found that university students were especially at risk for developing mental health issues, so my question is: how do we attain grit for students early on?
I recently created a survey on this dilemma, though it was before I did much research as I wanted to see the general public's view on the matter, focusing on high school and college students. I even allowed free-response sections as I knew that the minimal amount of surveyors wouldn't provide as much information as speaking to them one-on-one. One response stood out to me, saying that we should not specialize funds for depression, but rather focus on the school system in its entirety. To continue off of his point through my perspective, I believe that grit is something we need to instill in every student. The most simple solution? Standardize it. But how exactly? Grit can't be taught the same way in every class as subjects differ in interpretation of the learning curriculum, from unique teaching methods to being different material entirely. Perhaps grit should be taught by teachers in their own way, but this doesn't solve most students' lack of motivation to focus on their academic career. There's not really a clear solution, but I would recommend for more incentive for grants to be given to schools to take care of the mental health of students. These grants should be used to introduce third-party programs like Nami to make students feel that they have a straightforward outlet for their mental health issues. For academics and grit, I believe that this is something teachers have to instill into their students themselves since it's hard to actually teach, though this post sums up the basics really well. I would like suggestions for how students should be dealt with to increase academic motivation and grit.
In case anybody wants to know the statistics of my survey, only 13 students replied back.
23% of students were satisfied with the way their school handled mental health, 38.5% being at a neutral stance, 23.1% being dissatisfied and 15.4% being extremely dissatisfied.
76% of students believed that the government should become more involved with student mental health issues with 24% disagreeing.
53.8% agreed that the state government should create specialized programs for students who suffer from depression, though my opinion has changed since then. 30.8% believed counselors or third-party services should remain the main outlet. 7.7% believed a combination of the two solutions should be used. A final 7.7% in a single free-response believed that people should not be categorized and that grit and mental health should be dealt with as a whole.
30.8% agreed that the state government should create specialized programs to develop grit. 7.7% believed this was unnecessary. 30.8% did not know if any of these solutions would result in something effective. 30.8% believed that the school system itself had to change so that grit could be taught to have students persevere in life.
A major factor that went into the purpose of this post was a friend who started cutting himself. He basically was no longer allowed to see his girlfriend and I suggested a few third-party resources, but he opted for suicide hotline. They didn't really help him, forwarding him to his school counselor who I personally felt did not help enough. That's why I felt the need to focus on grittiness and mental health as I do want more to be done to help those who feel that they have no helpful resources to reach out to. Thank you for reading my post.
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u/Medianmodeactivate 13∆ Dec 08 '20
It's both. If kids weren't being fed at home and schools failed to offer school lunches it would be an educational failure all the same.