Most students at Lick-Wilmerding High School have set goals in their lives—to perform well in a class, get accepted to that dream college or achieve an impactful and stable career. But as artificial intelligence (AI) tools make it easier for students to shortcut problem-solving, bypass passion and override creativity, a question emerges: how often are those long-term goals truly aligned with authentic interest and paired with persistence? In 2007, psychologist Angela Duckworth introduced the concept of “grit,” a measurable psychological construct defined as passion and perseverance for long-term goals. Nearly two decades later, Duckworth and other researchers continue to argue that grit, in the long run, matters just as much as—if not more than—talent.
In 1992, Duckworth graduated from Harvard College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Neurobiology and, in 1996, earned a Master of Science from the University of Oxford. Fresh out of graduate school, Duckworth took a job as a consultant at McKinsey & Company, but left the firm a year later to teach math at public schools in New York, Philadelphia and San Francisco.
As a 7th grade math teacher in New York, Duckworth was struck by how her students’ success misaligned with their IQ scores. She realized that IQ alone did not explain which students did well—some with high standardized test scores struggled in class, while others with lower scores thrived.
“Doing well in school and life depends on much more than your ability to learn quickly and easily,” Duckworth said in a 2013 TED Talk.
Today, even with AI tools making it easier for students to perform well on paper, the same remains true: doing well still depends on genuine interest and persistence, rather than the ability to feed a prompt to an AI chatbot.
“When I’m passionate about [a subject], I don’t feel the pressure or even feel the need to consider AI because I actually want to learn about it, even if it means not getting things right the first time,” Amaya Tavu ’26, Co-President of LWHS’s Bring Change to Mind club, said.
After teaching in New York City public schools, Duckworth—driven to understand what “determines” success—pursued a graduate degree (PhD) in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania while simultaneously researching the concept of grit. She focused, in particular, on cadets at the United States Military Academy at West Point, participants in the National Spelling Bee, rookie teachers in “tough neighborhoods” and employees at select private companies. In each setting, Duckworth and her research team aimed to answer the same question: Who succeeds here and why?
Their definition of success was largely circumstantial: Which cadets would not drop out? Who would advance furthest in the spelling bee? Which teachers would improve learning outcomes for the most students? Who would keep their jobs and earn the most money?
In each case, there emerged one significant predictor of success: grit. “Grit is sticking with your future, day in, day out. Not just for the week, not just for the month, but for years…and working to make that future a reality,” Duckworth said.
In recent years, Duckworth has continued to conduct research through the University of Pennsylvania while also teaching the course “Grit Lab: Fostering Passion and Perseverance” to undergraduate students through the psychology department.
photo courtesy of TED
“In our class, when we were studying the science of passion and perseverance, we focused primarily on the psychosocial motivators behind grit, so basically, looking into how we motivate ourselves and how others influence that motivation,” Alisha Shetty, a recent graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and past Grit Lab student, said.
However, a careful distinction must be made between grit and fighting tooth and nail towards a long-term goal. “Many people misinterpreted that [Angela Duckworth] was implying you should choose a goal and white knuckle it,” Carrie Maslow, LWHS Psychology teacher, said.
“It’s not blindly throwing yourself at a problem forever…grit is the ability to embrace discomfort and invest time and effort into something you believe is worth pursuing,” Darius Teter, host of the “Grit & Growth” podcast, said.
Teter’s sentiment reflects a broader critique of grit raised by Jal Mehta, an associate professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. “In the long run, most people do not persevere at things because they are good at persevering…they persevere because they find things that are worth investing in. The implication for schools is that they should spend less time trying to boost students’ grit, and more time trying to think about how their offerings could help students develop purpose and passion,” Mehta wrote.
Today, as AI tools make it easier for students to perform well, Maslow notes that many high school students facing intense pressure during the college admissions process focus on external markers—particularly grades—rather than demonstrating the passion-driven component of grit.
“If what matters is enjoying the process, contributing to the world and learning something that matters…the [grade received] itself has nothing to do with that…it’d be great if grades measured doing something that interested and mattered [to students],” she said.
While Maslow believes the grading system could do more to reward gritty students, she also notes that, in many of her classes, those with intense grit shine. “I see it all the time…students have really inventive ways of getting around something that at first seems difficult,” she said.
Teter is also the Executive Director of Stanford Seed—a branch of Stanford Graduate School of Business that partners with entrepreneurs from across Africa, Indonesia and South Asia to aid the growth of their businesses. In his role, Teter works closely alongside entrepreneurs who, based on where they are and the markets around them, are forced to exhibit almost unparalleled problem-solving, resilience and agility.
“Imagine you’re trying to scale your company from Tanzania across East Africa…you have 40 different currencies, different government regulations, different tax regimes, different languages,” Teter said. “The most successful founders are the ones who find a reason to get up every day and continue to face all those things that I call ‘non-market challenges’…they believe they have some compelling solution to a real problem,” he said.
Teter also believes the ability to pivot requires grit. “Figuring out that your solution isn’t actually the right one, that’s success, right?…being able to say, ‘I need a different idea’ takes grit, too.”
Many worry that AI, however, poses a risk to human development of grit as it can be used to supersede curiosity and critical thinking.
“I could lecture you and say you should just use your own brain first. But…if two-thirds of your fellow classmates are doing the easy thing [and using AI], while you’re doing the hard thing, and they get better grades…they will have actually done the rational thing,” Teter said. “This industrial revolution is replacing creativity…and the incentives aren’t aligned…good scores do not necessarily reflect deep thought or grit.”
No matter the situation or circumstance, when it comes to pursuing curiosity and seeking success toward a long-term goal, grit—that being effort, passion and perseverance—will continue to be essential. “Skill is applying effort to talent, while achievement is the result of dedicating effort to that skill….effort is the underlying must-have,” Teter said.
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