Let me tell you a story about organic chemistry. On the first day of class – I was a sophomore, surrounded by anxious pre-med majors – the professor announced that we would soon forget everything we were about to learn. He assured us that, no matter how hard we studied, all of these chemical equations would vanish from our memory. Why, then, were we taking the class? According to the professor, organic chemistry was really about learning how to learn. In a sense, he wasn’t testing our chemical knowledge – he was testing our ability to stuff lots of peculiar facts into our head, to cram for weeks for a curved exam. And this is why the class was a requirement for medical school. It was a way of weeding out the students who didn’t have the discipline, who lacked the grit necessary to stay up late staring at notecards about nitrogen.
The same lesson applies to the tedious exams of grade school. We’re not really testing the knowledge of students, since all this knowledge will soon be forgotten. (As promised, I forgot all my organic chemistry the day after the final.) Instead, we’re measuring their ability to learn, to sit in the chair and stare at the blackboard and listen to the teacher. A 5th grade science test isn’t a test of science – it’s an indirect test of all sorts of essential mental habits, such as self-control, grit, conscientiousness, and executive attention. Furthermore, there’s an ever-growing body of evidence that these psychological traits are incredibly important for success in the real world. While society has long obsessed over raw smarts and intellect – just look at our fixation on IQ scores – it’s now becoming clear that our dispositions are often more important. A recent paper by James Heckman and Flavio Cunha, for instance, notes that dependability is the trait most valued by employers, while “perseverance, dependability and consistency are the most important predictors of grades in school.” Of course, these valuable skills have little or anything to do with general intelligence or abstract reasoning or critical thinking. And that’s probably a good thing, since the available evidence suggests that these traits are much more malleable, at least when interventions occur at an early age. Our education might not make us much smarter – alas, our IQ is strongly shaped by our genes – but it can make us a better person, and that’s even more important.
Sounds right. Persistence, dependability and consistency certainly are helpful in getting into and out of law school. And while you're there, there's plenty of opportunity to get grittier and grittier through tedium. The trick is hanging on to these winning traits as you practice law. Your clients are counting on them.
