How Children Succeed with Author Paul Tough

Avery Coonley School, 1400 Maple Ave, Downers Grove, IL | Get Directions »
$20.00

The Avery Coonley School will host Paul Tough, acclaimed author of How Children Succeed, on Tuesday,
February 26 at 7 pm. The presentation is open to all community adults.

Why do some children succeed while others fail? The story we usually tell about childhood and success is the one about intelligence: success comes to those who score highest on tests, from preschool admissions to SATs.
In his book, How Children Succeed, Paul Tough argues that the qualities that matter most have more to do with
character. Based on the work of a new generation of researchers and educators, Tough points to the fact that the qualities that have a better shot at indicating lifelong success are “non-cognitive” or what we might refer to as
“personality traits” such as: curiosity, conscientiousness, optimism, self-control, and grit. Tough shows how “nature” and “nurture” are intertwined and how childhood stresses modify life successes and the surprising ways that
parents do - and do not - prepare their children for adulthood. Tough helps us understand how early adversity affects childhood emotional, social and cognitive development in ways that will carry on throughout their entire lives and what we can do about it.

Paul Tough is the author of the highly acclaimed book How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character. He has written extensively about education, child development, poverty, and politics, including cover stories in the New York Times Magazine on character education, the achievement gap, and the Obama administration's anti-poverty policies. He has worked as an editor at the New York Times Magazine and Harper's Magazine and as a reporter and producer for the public-radio program "This American Life."