Geoffrey Canada was the subject (along with Barbara Walters!) of Henry Louis Gates’s most recent “Finding Your Roots” program. Some amazing moments, including the will that valued Geoff’s great-great-grandfather, Thomas, a slave, at $250. Plus students at Promise Academy learning how much of their DNA ancestry traces to Africa.

1. In 2010, James Shechter, a sophomore at the Haverford School, a private school near Philadelphia, came across the article I wrote in 2008 on schools in New Orleans in the New York Times Magazine. He was inspired by two of the educators I wrote about, Tiffany Hardrick and Keith Sanders, who were, at the time, starting a new charter school called Miller-McCoy Academy. According to a recent article in the Neighbors Main Line Blog, Shechter contacted Hardrick and Sanders, spent the summer in New Orleans tutoring Miller-McCoy students, and has since raised close to $10,000 for the school.

2. In December, the Education Writers Association’s Educated Reporter blog gave its “Water Cooler Award (for one of the most talked-about stories of the year)” to my article in the New York Times Magazine about character, “What If the Secret to Success Is Failure?” (The article will be included, in expanded and adapted form, in my book “How Children Succeed,” which will be published on September 4.)

3. In O: The Oprah Magazine, the writer and comedian Ali Wentworth selected “Whatever It Takes” as one of the “books that made a difference” in her life:

“This is a life-changing book,” Wentworth says of Tough’s look at the work of social activist and educator Geoffrey Canada, who created the Harlem Children’s Zone, a cradle-to-college, community-based organization. “My mantra is ‘The art is in the doing.’ A lot of people talk about polls and research, but I have a hard time with all the red tape. I just go, I get it, but can we rush a can of soup to the family right now?”

Last week, the Department of Education announced a new round of Promise Neighborhood funding, including some new planning grants as well as the first implementation grants. The New America Foundation’s Early Ed Watch has all the background. The implementation grants went to organizations in Buffalo; Hayward, California; San Antonio, rural Kentucky, and Minneapolis. (Sondra Samuels, the C.E.O. of the Northside Achievement Zone, the Minneapolis group that was awarded an implementation grant, is pictured above.)

Winning the War on Poverty: I first encountered the writing of Paul Tough a few weeks ago, while working on an article about the long-term effects of adversity in the first two years of life. Tough had written a New Yorker article on the subject. But recently I discovered that he had, years ago, written a terrific book on a related subject. Whatever It Takes focuses on the Harlem Children’s Zone and Geoffrey Canada, the man who created it. The Zone is an effort to create a seamless system of social supports for low-income children within Harlem. The book is uplifting and depressing, hopeful and pessimistic. In short, it is complicated, just like public policy in the real world.

I had a great time last week visiting Salem, Oregon, to give the keynote address at the Closing the Gap Summit run by Salem’s Fostering Hope Initiative. Saerom Yoo, a reporter for the Salem Statesman-Journal, wrote this report on the event.

Nie chodzi więc o to, żeby dzieci jednego dnia pasjonowały się polityką, a drugiego jazdą na snowboardzie, tylko uparcie dążyły do wybranego przez siebie celu, jakikolwiek on będzie. Niestety, większość szkół nie sprawdza i nie wytwarza umiejętności samokontroli i wytrwałości. A są one niezbędne do szczęśliwego i spełnionego życia!

which according to Google Translate, means:

It is not, therefore, is that one day children are passionate about politics, and a second ride on a snowboard, but stubbornly sought to order their choice, whatever it is. Unfortunately, most schools do not verify and does not produce self-control skills and perseverance. And they are essential to a happy and fulfilled life!

That sounds like me.

And on Minnesota Public Radio’s morning show, David Levin of KIPP and author David Shenk discussed the article and KIPP’s approach to character. Audio here.

According to Tough and some of his subjects, the key ingredient is grit, the ability to persist in the face of obstacles and even failure.

GRIT! I thought.  This is what I’ve been saying all along!  If I can face down my limitations, if I can labour to be, not perfect, but better – I will be … happy?  Is grit something we can learn?  If so, how can we teach it? …

Teaching them how to write a commentary is all very well, but what is it for?  Maybe the main thing is for is to help them practice grit: Yes, it’s hard.  Just keep going.  If you fail, fail as well as you can, and then try again.

We need to spend less time talking about literary techniques and more time talking about grit.

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