Grit. Determination. Resilience.

Read the sports pages of most newspapers and you will see these performance virtues eulogised over and over again, and rightly so: sport illuminates these intangibles like few other mediums.

We can see​ examples of these virtues with our own eyes through famous sporting events. Ali coming back against Foreman in the Rumble in the Jungle. Leicester beating the odds to win the Premier League. Grit. Determination. Resilience. 

Do good, balanced young people simply possess grit, determination and resilience though?

Grit, resilience and character education

Aristotle thought not.

The godfather of every character programme in the modern Western world, he felt they needed to be tethered to moral and civic virtues that were even more intangible, and even more important. To name three: integrity, empathy and compassion. 

What does this have to do with schools?  

Everything.

Pick five random schools and read their mission statement or ethos from their website. For many, performance virtues still dominate. Grit. Determination. Resilience. Even in Carol Dweck’s Growth Mindset theory.

All are fundamental to the type of young people we educators wish to cultivate, but only when supported by the ability to make good ethical choices.

For what good in the world can a determined, resilient young person do without the ability to empathise with others or choose between right and wrong?

Some of history’s most heinous individuals have possessed huge determination and resilience and hugely lacked compassion, empathy and integrity. 

Praise all positive personality types

There is, however, a growing movement to create young people who hold a full, rather than a partial, formed understanding of character.

Organisations like the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues offer excellent, free courses for teachers in character education that highlight the need for both performance and moral virtues in the same child; it is possible to be driven and caring at the same time, or to possess grit but also civility. 

What can we teachers do? Firstly, think about our language.

By only praising drive or effort, and forgetting about “softer” virtues such as understanding or fairness, we are unconsciously buttressing an understanding that only performance matters; Student A may have improved their test score, showing motivation, but in doing so ignored Student B at the next desk who was despondent because their result was not as good as they hoped.

Clear examples 

Next, teachers need to be explicit about what these virtues “look” like. At St Joseph’s Malaysia, we have a Character in the Classroom week, when the different subjects “teach” character through their subject areas.

In PE, typically the terrain of solely performance, there may be an explicit focus on fairness and honesty within sport, or sportspeople who have behaved with civility (such as when Paolo Di Canio sportingly caught the ball instead of scoring when seeing an opposition player down injured).

History lessons may focus on how a deficit of moral virtues, maybe a lack of empathy or transparency, damaged the political career of certain famous leaders.

Not only does this make it explicit for the students, it also helps teachers to understand the way your school is “doing” character, and how it may be different to their previous experiences.

Pick great role models

Finally, think carefully about who your school chooses as role models. Business people and sportsmen often offer fantastic examples of performance virtues but can be less effective when modelling integrity, civility and citizenship.

Some truly great individuals, think Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King, offer near-perfect examples of the full spectrum of virtues, from grit to compassion, and are worth exploring with students.

So, by all means, celebrate the determination of Muhammad Ali or the resilience of Leicester City, but remember that while these virtues on their own may help to create good boxers or footballers, they may not necessarily create good people - which, after all, is what we wish our students to become. 

Andy Bayfield is the teaching and learning leader at an international school in Malaysia