Perseverance: What We Can Pass On to Students

Kristijan Musek Lešnik
Nov 8, 2025
3 min read

Updated: Nov 26, 2025

Young people build perseverance (aka grit) through purposeful challenge, self-regulation, fair feedback, and practice—not talent alone. Teachers can help them grow perseverance by modeling effort, scaffolding struggle, and celebrating progress.

“Perseverance isn’t talent—it’s taught.”

Today we know a lot about perseverance and dedication — thanks to the work of Angela Duckworth, whose research shows that grit predicts success in school and career even more strongly than intelligence or talent.

No one, no matter how gifted, achieves success everywhere and always without effort. Perseverance is essential for overcoming obstacles, recovering after failure, exploring the unknown, developing new ideas, and managing challenges. With perseverance, young people can learn to face difficulties, learn from mistakes, and move steadily toward meaningful goals.

Why Perseverance Matters in School

Because perseverance and related habits develop from early childhood onward, preschool and school play a crucial role in nurturing and strengthening them.

Young people are “energy-efficient”: they invest where they feel interest, success, and reward. Our role is to nudge beyond comfort with age-appropriate challenge and support, until they internalize motivation and can self-direct.

Strategies for it include:

Setting clear, doable next steps (not “try harder”).
Normalizing productive struggle (“hard ≠ impossible”).
Teaching micro-strategies (chunking, checklists, time cues).

Self-regulation doesn’t appear on its own. It must be learned, and here, the role of adults is irreplaceable.

Inspiration Starts Close to Home

When we talk about perseverance, we often think of people who have overcome enormous obstacles and achieved extraordinary success. Those stories can inspire — but for children, they can also feel distant or unreal.

For young learners, perseverance is best practiced through challenges that feel close, meaningful, and engaging. Listening to heroic stories alone can sometimes have the opposite effect — making effort in everyday life seem unimportant or impossible.

The Immediate Gratification Trap

Children today grow up in a world of instant gratification. What they want, they often get — here and now. Parents and grandparents give easily, or children learn to insist until they succeed.

In addition, in the digital world, nearly everything — social media, games, apps — is designed to deliver immediate rewards. This constant dopamine rush teaches the brain to crave quick satisfaction and to avoid anything that takes time, effort, or patience.

But research shows something powerful: children who learn to delay gratification grow into more successful and emotionally balanced adults. That’s why it's so important to help children learn persistence —to keep going when something is difficult, to work toward goals that matter, and to experience the satisfaction of steady progress.

How to Teach Perseverance (Teacher Playbook)

Invite new experiences. Offer tasks needing practice + patience. Celebrate accomplishments together with children and youth.
Plan meaningful challenges. Match skill ↔ challenge; push them slightly beyond comfort.
Share real stories from your experience and from the classroom. Use authentic, local examples of people who improved through effort + strategy (not just “genius” tales).
Be honest about effort. Say: “This will take time and tries—and here’s our plan.”
Coach after failure. Debrief: What worked? What didn’t? One adjustment? Try again quickly.
Celebrate progress. Spotlight their micro-wins.

Language That Builds Grit

Name it: “You chunked the task—nice move.”
Link effort to outcome: “Your second draft clarified your claim.”
Normalize struggle: “If it’s hard, you’re learning.”
Prompt a plan: “What’s your next step?”
Frame setbacks: “Not yet. What will you tweak?”

Avoid: Labels like “smart/talented.”

Aim for: actions, strategies, choices.

In the End

Perseverance isn’t never falling—it’s getting up with a better plan.

It’s the quiet strength that turns potential into progress and goals into growth.

In every classroom, teachers can help young people discover the joy of not giving up. It’s a powerful lesson, one that will continue to guide and influence them long after they’ve moved beyond your classroom.