Grit and the Age of Hufflepuff

This past week J. K. Rowling tweeted about the “dawn of the age of Hufflepuff”. As Hufflepuff Hippo, this sounds like exciting news – except of course I don’t really know what it means. There is some connection to the movie Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, to be released in 2016. Newt Scamander, the main protagonist of the movie (and the book) hails from Hufflepuff house. Given that movies are often accompanied by merchandise, we might be seeing a lot more Hufflepuff paraphernalia. Now that’s something I can be excited about! Most things out there look Gryffindor-ish.

I find it interesting in our Internet-enabled age with social media tools like Twitter, that there is now an avenue for famous people to make a (sometimes cryptic) statement that then spark pages of electronic ink speculating on every aspect of even a single sentence. Rowling has become such a figure. Legions of fans seem to hang on to her every word – after all she has the author’s authority. (Makes you think about where the word authority comes from!) This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as long as there is some critical thinking about what is being said by the authority figure. In the beginning of the semester, my class has a discussion about the existence of atoms (none of us has actually seen an atom) and how one obtains knowledge, and that learning by authority (as opposed to one’s own self-experimentation) can be a good thing especially if the author is trustworthy.

Let’s return to Hufflepuff for a moment. What are the traits of a Hufflepuff? Trustworthy, loyal and kind, dedicated, hardworking, patient, etc. Those sound like great traits! (For another assortment, see Buzzfeed’s 19 Reasons Everyone Should be a Hufflepuff, which also makes use of Twitter pronouncements by Rowling.) Sounds like it beats just being ABC: Ambitious, Brave or Clever. (As Hufflepuff Hippo, I am clearly biased.) The trait I have been thinking about this week, that applies well to Hufflepuffs, and that my students should hopefully learn, is Grit.

Grit makes one think of tenacity, a willingness to work hard to overcome obstacles, and having fortitude. As I’ve been thinking a lot about teaching and creativity lately, this reminds me of the oft-quoted Thomas Edison phrase: “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” If you equate creativity with genius (I’m not sure it is – but the two often get conflated), then it sounds like a helluva lot of grit is required. Another common phrase associated with creativity, specifically openness to new ideas, is Louis Pasteur’s “Chance favors the prepared mind.”

Much ink (both physical and electronic) has gone into examining whether grit and creativity are linked. Views vary widely across the spectrum as to how integral grit is to creativity. As both a teacher and a learner of new things, I experience firsthand the importance of grit in trying to accomplish a challenging task whether it be putting together a well-timed and coherent class activity that meets all the ambitious learning goals, or surmounting a roadblock that has stymied a research project. There is a temptation to do less than the best – and honestly I don’t always do my best. But having experienced the value of putting in the hard work and seeing the fruits of that labor are satisfying when it involves something I am interested in or care about.

There’s the rub. I think that grit leads to its best results in creativity and excellence when it is something you really do care about. Given that I care about my teaching, and the learning of my students, I’m quite willing to put in the work to get better and be more creative at it. In the parlance of the creativity literature, I’m intrinsically motivated. But not all my students are interested in chemistry. Many are there because it’s a requirement they have to fulfill but they show little interest in. They are extrinsically motivated. Grit now becomes a painful (“grit your teeth”) process that you just need to get over and then you can go on with the rest of your life, rather than a part of creative and excellent work.

I had an open and lively discussion in my chemistry for non-science majors class last week, where the students were free without repercussion to articulate how they are apprehensively viewing taking a chemistry class. (We structured the discussion around the question “Why is there little understanding of science among the general public?”) I was able to articulate why I specifically choose to teach this class year after year. (I don’t have to, and in fact could go through my career not teaching it.) I told the students that it is my hope that they will find chemistry both interesting and applicable to their lives, but they will have to work hard to understand it and that it will be worth the time and effort. I’m not sure everyone believed me, but that’s okay. (I also happen to teach Physical Chemistry – the dreaded class of Chemistry majors, where similar conversations take place, often in my office over problem sets.)

In the “old school” days, learning could be a torturous and gritty exercise. There are trends and pressures to “make things interesting and relevant” (which is not a bad thing) today but hopefully we don’t lose the importance of grit. Spoon-feeding our students (and many of them seem to want the “easy way”) is doing them a disservice. They need to learn to grapple with the difficulties – but it is incumbent upon us as teachers to improve how we motivate our students without watering down our expectations. Now that could be creative teaching in a new age of Hufflepuff!