Paul Tough on How Children Succeed

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4.7 • 4.3K Ratings

🗓️ 17 September 2012

⏱️ 55 minutes

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Summary

Paul Tough, author of How Children Succeed, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about why children succeed and fail in school and beyond school. He argues that conscientiousness--a mixture of self-control and determination--can be a more important measure of academic and professional success than cognitive ability. He also discusses innovative techniques that schools, individuals, and non-profits are using to inspire young people in distressed neighborhoods. The conversation closes with the implications for public policy in fighting poverty.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty.
0:06.4	I'm your host Russ Roberts of Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
0:11.0	Our website is econtalk.org where you can subscribe, comment on this podcast, and find
0:16.0	links and other information related to today's conversation.
0:19.0	You'll also find our archives where you can listen to every episode we've ever done going
0:23.3	back to 2006.
0:25.4	Our email address is maladycontalk.org.
0:27.9	We'd love to hear from you.
0:33.1	Today is September 13th, 2012, and my guest is Paul Tuff.
0:37.3	His latest book is How Children succeed, grit, curiosity, and the hidden power of character.
0:42.6	Paul, welcome to Econ Talk.
0:44.1	Thanks, great to be here.
0:45.3	You can open your book by saying we've been looking for results in the wrong places.
0:49.8	My results, childhood success, fighting poverty, helping kids escape poverty and get education.
0:56.6	What do you mean we're looking in the wrong places?
1:00.5	Well, I think that for the last couple of decades, especially, we have been overemphasizing
1:05.1	the importance of IQ and cognitive skills when we think about what helps children succeed.
1:11.8	I think that's why we're so obsessed with test scores both in terms of individual families
1:16.6	and as a nation in terms of our education policy.
1:21.0	And the researchers and educators who I write about in the book are arguing for a different
1:25.8	set of skills being at least as predictive of successful kids and arguably more predictive.
1:31.2	You start off the book talking about some recent results in neuroscience and psychology,
	...

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