Marian Robert Morrison-My Favorite Actor
Willits's Weekly Wonderings Eleven (4)
Before sharing more about my favorite actor and his most prized role, did you know I was a TV star? Well, perhaps “star” is too strong of a word, but I DID appear on national television, during prime time . . . for about seven seconds. The year was 1992. I, nine-years-old at the time, was featured during a commercial break of TBS’s “10 Days of the Duke.” My favorite actor is “The Duke,” a.k.a. John Wayne (born “Marion Robert Morrison” in Winterset, Iowa). Unfortunately, my attempts to locate a YouTube video of my seven seconds of fame proved futile.
If you were to pick one attribute to endow, teach, or instill in your children, which would you pick: happiness, compassion, gratitude? Perhaps one of my favorite John Wayne films, for which he won the 1970 Oscar for best actor, might provide some insight. The character was Rooster Cogburn and the film was
Perhaps advocating for our students to be like Rooster Cogburn, a gun-wielding, whiskey guzzling cowboy sheriff is a bit of a stretch. But what of the attribute for which the movie is titled?
What is grit? How important is it for our students?
Every time I ponder "grit," I think of this scene from another one of my favorite films:
In effort to explore the aforementioned questions (and to see what I could learn from books instead of movies), I read Grit: The Power of Passion and Purpose by Angela Duckworth. It was an insightful read to say the least. Here are some excerpts worth highlighting, particularly those relating to how we might instill grit in our students:
“The context was that my dad knew me. He knew all I wanted to do was sprint home, and he knew that if he let me do that, it would be letting me give in to my fears.”
“It was a loving act,”Steve concluded. It was tough, but it was loving.”
But it's a fine line between tough love and bullying isn't it? What's the difference?
“I knew the decision was mine,” Steve said. “And I knew my dad didn't want me to be him. Number one, a parent needs to set a stage that proves to the child, 'I'm not trying to just have you do what I say, control you, make you be like me, make you do what I did, ask you to make up for what I didn't do.' My dad showed me earlier that it wasn't about him and what he needed. It truly was ‘I'm giving you all I got.’
“There was an underlying selflessness to the tough love,” Steve continued. “I think that's vital. If any of the tough love is about the parent just trying to control you, well, kids smell it out. In every way possible, I knew my parents were saying, ‘ We are looking to see your success. We've left ourselves behind.’”-p. 207 (my emphasis added)
There are countless research studies showing that kids who are more involved in extracurriculars fare better on just about every conceivable metric--they earn better grades, have higher self-esteem, are less likely to get in trouble and so forth. A handful of these studies are longitudinal, meaning that researchers waited to see what happened to kids later in life. These longer-term studies come to the same conclusion: more participation in activities predicts better outcomes. * *
The same research clearly indicates that overdosing on extracurriculars is pretty rare. These days, the average American teenager report spending more than 3 hours a day watching television and playing video games. Additional time is drained away checking social media feeds, texting friends links to cat videos, and tracking the Kardashians as they figure out which outfit to wear--which makes it hard to argue that time can't be spared for the chess club or the school play, or just about any other structured, skill focused, adult guided activity.-p. 225
If we can't be Einstein, is it worth studying physics? If we can't be Usain Bolt, should we go for a run this morning? Is there any point in trying to run a little faster or longer than we did yesterday? In my view, these are absurd questions. If my daughter says to me, “Mom, I shouldn’t practice my piano today because I'll never be Mozart,” I'll say in reply, “ You're not practicing piano to be Mozart.”
We all face limits-- not just in talent, but in opportunity. But more often than we think, our limits are self-imposed ***. We try, fail, and conclude we have bumped our heads against the ceiling of possibility. Or maybe after taking just a few steps we change direction. In either case, we never venture as far as we might have.
To be gritty is to keep putting one foot in front of the other. To be gritty is to hold fast to an interesting and purposeful goal. To be gritty is to invest, day after week after year, in challenging practice. To be gritty is to fall down seven times, rise eight.-p. 275 (my emphasis added)
In an effort to increase your "to read book" list as much as I have been increasing your "to watch movie" list, let me recommend another book, How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character by Paul Tough. Here is a gem from his book:
As [our son] grew older, though, I found, as countless parents had found before me, that he needed something more than love and hugs. He also needed discipline, rules, limits; someone to say no. And what he needed more than anything was some child-size adversity, a chance to fall down and get back up on his own, without help.
This was harder for Paula and me—it came less naturally to us than the
hugging and comforting—and I know that it is just the beginning of the long
struggle we will face, as all parents do, between our urge to provide
everything for our child, to protect him from all harm, and our knowledge that if we really want him to succeed, we need to first let him fail. Or more precisely, we need to help him learn to manage failure. —pp. 182-183 (my emphasis added).
An article from my professional school counseling journal had the same name (i.e. True Grit, although it didn’t reference John Wayne as a source of inspiration) by Dr. Sarah Van’t Hof. In the article, Dr. Van’t Hof outlines resilience; growth versus fixed mindset; learned optimism; resilience and motivation; and implications for school counselors. She writes:
"Bottom-line, children and teens have to experience challenges to reflect upon and learn from them."
Duckworth’s book, Tough's book, and Van’t Hof’s article emphasize the importance of grit. The challenge for us as parents, educators, coaches, etc. is to allow (encourage?) our students to experience challenges and fall down (one less time than they rise). Doing so would make them more like my favorite actor. While we might not want our kids jumping on horseback brandishing six-shooters, fostering the growth of their grit is a great way to foster their future success.
I love being your student's school counselor. If there is something you would like me to know to do it better, please hit "reply."
Grant W. Willits
5-8 School Counselor
(712)722-3783 (x2120)
**this sounds similar to the advice I received from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. There is value in your participation/practice, even if you don't make it to the NBA or become Mozart.
***Which I would contend is due to the fear Mr. Miyagi encouraged us to defeat and/or the stories we tell ourselves, which Will Smith's After Earth character tried to help us defeat.
No comments:
Post a Comment