Consciousshift With Julie Ann Turner

The results are in: It’s not about how much information we can stuff into children's brains in the first few years, and it’s not about how highly they score on tests, from preschool admissions to SATs.Julie Ann's ConsciousSHIFT guest Paul Tough, author of HOW CHILDREN SUCCEED: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character, connects the dots between groundbreaking research in neuroscience, economics, and psychology to show that the qualities that matter most for success have less to do with IQ and more to do with character: skills like grit, curiosity, conscientiousness, and optimism.Paul takes on what he calls the “cognitive hypothesis,” the idea that success hinges on mental processing speed and traditional brainpower. Instead, citing lots of interesting research, Tough shows that “non-cognitive skills ... perseverance, optimism, self-control, and so on – are actually what matter most.More than that, the ability to adapt to change - and bounce back from failure - are the capacities that create the chara