‘Tanto necessario grit’ da favorire negli scolari dell’Inghilterra, dicono i ministri
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/may/16/much-needed-grit-to-be-fostered-in-englands-schoolchildren-say-ministers
di boycecodd
‘Tanto necessario grit’ da favorire negli scolari dell’Inghilterra, dicono i ministri
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/may/16/much-needed-grit-to-be-fostered-in-englands-schoolchildren-say-ministers
di boycecodd
28 commenti
Are teachers getting additional training, pay and time off their existing curriculum commitments to run mental health group sessions, or is this another weight to carry on top of everything else?
Let’s completely ignore any of the causes for this perceived lack of resilience and instead focus on ‘preparing’ children for the relentless misery their adulthood has in store.
Because as we nothing motivates a person like telling them to man up and get on with it.
Joke country. No surprise at all we’re slipping and sliding on every measurable metric for quality of life, salaries and happiness.
With the amount of stuff teachers deal with I’m surprised there’s any time for lessons.
I consider at least part of the issue to be an over focus on mental health, to the point where it is forced to the forefront of every decision making process and becomes a form of obsessive hypochondria. A little less focus on thinking about what is concerning you gives you an opportunity to get on and enjoy things.
Constantly analysing things is detrimental to enjoying life, and teaching _children_ to focus on negativity is robbing them of their childhoods.
Step two of this is obvious.
Instead of summer holidays, children aged 13-18 will be bussed out to the agricultural areas to work on the farms. Each child will be given a one-man tent, a rucksack, map & compass to avoid buses needed to last mile delivery.
Twelve hours a day of hard labour before coming back to cook a communal meal will toughen them up
Clearly I’m not serious with this suggestion but I do think there is merit in having children join beaver/cubs/scouts/guides from a young age and getting used to being uncomfortable and learning practical skills.
> ‘Much-needed grit’ to be fostered in England’s schoolchildren, say ministers
There is a bin of grit outside my kid’s school, they have plenty of it
Grit lol you mean mistreatment, keep them pushed down. Nice try 1% but we will take control using robots and live a pleasant life.
It’s great that we are taking mental health and such more seriously, but being soft as wet shit and being completely unable to handle the tiniest bit of adversity is not a solution.
Translation “we messed up and created hard times” “rather than take responsibility for trying to fix them, we will just hope future generations will be tough enough to cope”
25 years a secondary teacher.
If they made schools less like Victorian workhouses and stopped the horrible constant testing and exam pressure, then they wouldn’t need ‘grit’ or support advisers. It’s the school environment that’s causing all the problems.
In temporary accommodation ✅
On a permanent budget ✅
Parents extremely exhausted from working ✅
It’s definitely the kids, send them to war or the gulag /s for my ND people.
Kids these days seam to be well balanced and level headed. Few outliers of course but even there doubt the teens on scooters stealing mobiles are lacking grit. Not so sure about the people calling out kids. Is this the usual no one wants to “work” conversation?
Have they ever though it may be the UK education system itself and it’s obsession with attendance, discipline, uniforms, exam passing etc that is leading to sky high mental health problems in kids?
Grit? Are they bringing back the cane or something?
“Much needed grit” say the people who spend every day finding something to be offended and outraged about.
As both a teacher and a psychologist (who studied ‘non-cognitive factors’ as the focus of my dissertation)
Grit is very hard to influence: you can’t teach it, you learn it through life challenges, support, failing at things
Sure you can model thinking strategies…but they can’t be taught in isolation
Essentially is you want resilient people you have to change interactions staff and parents have with them from a young age and be consistent throughout years of their life to change aspects of their personality
As ever, the affluent get resources, and the rest of us get “grit.”
We’re one of the most overqualified countries in the world. We have no jobs for all of our high skilled workers because the economy is in the shit.
How is school kids working harder and becoming more overqualified going to help?
Edit: tbf reading the article it’s more about increasing mental health support than telling kids to work harder. Basically just a headline which makes you think they’re saying something they aren’t.
I blame the parents. Resilience is built by facing challenges and overcoming them. As a parent it is your job to control the challenges, making sure they are attainable and being supportive when the children fail.
It can be as simple as making pancakes with them and then letting them do it themselves. If they can do that then they get the confidence to try and cook other things.
Failure to do the basics leads to the issues we see today.
And yes, I have 2 teenagers and they are the nice, happy and confident girls.
When I saw the article I assumed they meant grit as in determination and perseverance, to try hard, but it just goes on about mental health. Whilst mental health of children is important, as a parent and coach of a kids football team, I try and push effort and determination to the kids. No one is giving you it for free. A prime example of this is the number of kids who don’t want to do sports day. Who don’t want to attend lessons cos ‘they’re boring’. They need to be motivated by someone who leads by example, and that starts at home, not at school. Parents need to start taking responsibility for how soft and unmotivated their kids are and start taking them on daily runs, clubs, homework, and showing them what ‘grit’ looks like.
they’re going to make them fight each other in a ring.
Look at the success of alternative schools, the education system needs a massive rehaul and a blinding investment
While grit gets all the play in school reform circles, it is not actually the leading theory of motivation among psychologists. The most well-known scholarship on motivation is actually Edward Deci and Richard Ryan’s “self-determination theory,” which synthesized decades of research to argue that people are fundamentally seeking autonomy, competence, and relatedness, and that they thrive in environments that enable them to maximize these qualities. Research on (and experience with) adolescents also suggests that they are particularly developmentally primed to explore their individual identities (autonomy), take on roles where they can assume responsibility (competence), and have opportunities to connect and work with others (relatedness).
(From an essay by Jal Mehta)
I’d focus less on grit and more on discipline. From what I gather, the main problem in schools is that teachers are being abused (and, occasionally, assaulted) by their pupils.
This sounds exactly like something Michael Gove would say to pander to Daily Mail readers…
I had it explained nicely by a amputee from Afghanistan.
People tell him he “so resilient” for getting on in life with no legs.
He says he’s resilient because bad stuff has happened to him and he has no choice. He doesn’t want anyone else to have to be resilient.
I want adults with power in the world to make the world better, not focus on making the kids ready to deal with how bad it is.
Bring back boxing and the cane that will toughen them up
What do today’s kids have to look forward to?
Good jobs? Nope
A home of their own? Nope
Good and accessible healthcare? Nope
Good transport infrastructure? Nope
Disposable income for holidays? Nope
Free time for hobbies and interests? Nope
Feeling like part of a bigger society that’s diverse and supportive? Nope?
Global conflict? Yep
Intolerance and bigotry on the rise? Yep
Growing gap between the ultra rich and everyone else? Yep
Environmental collapse? Yep
Needing to have more than one job just to support yourself and your family? Yep
Rising retirement age? Yep
A lifetime of renting and being at the whims of landlords? Yep
Why don’t we fix those things instead of gaslighting them to be more resilient to the horrors that await them in adulthood?