The Journal of Positive Psychology recently put out an article called Positive Predictors of Teacher Effectiveness. In it, the authors suggest that novice teachers working in poor public schools do better if they have certain traits like grit. One of the authors of the paper, UPenn psychology professor Angela Lee Duckworth, has researched the “grit factor” quite a bit and even has a grit scale. So what is grit? Think diligence, ambition, perseverance, an affinity for hard work and high achievement, and an unwillingness to give up or fail.

It makes perfect sense that teachers, especially those in struggling urban schools, would need some grit to make a real difference. DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee said essentially the same thing at an ES forum a couple years back when she said (paraphrasing) she wants every teacher in DCPS to come to school each day with a fire in their belly. Listen to our lively discussion about fires in bellies for yourself here (at about the 13 minute mark). Fire in the belly, grit, ganas, whatever we want to call that combination of attributes that spells success (and that most industries seek), I don’t question that it has a real impact, or that DC and other students would be better off with teachers that had more of this.

But I know it’s not sustainable. Folks with grit are high-achievers who have career options that they will almost surely exercise unless teaching, as a job, gets better than it is now. So while I applaud efforts to recruit great and gritty teachers, we can’t neglect the fundamental design problems of teaching–design problems that almost ensure that schools won’t get enough smart talented people–of varying degrees of grit–to develop into the teacher workforce we need. In our rush to identify the best and brightest, we can’t forget that improving teacher quality in the long run means  improving teachers’ work. More about improving teachers’ work here. Next week we’ll be talking more about designs for teachers’ work in a 2-day online discussion–we hope you’ll post comments and questions when the chat opens on Tuesday.