On 22 December 2015, the General Assembly decided to establish an annual International Day to recognize the critical role women and girls play in science and technology; the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, celebrated on 11 February, is implemented by UNESCO and Un-Women, collaboration institutions and civil society partners that aim to promote women and girls in science. This Day is an opportunity to promote full and equal access to and participation in science for women and girls. Gender equality is a global priority for UNESCO, and the support of young girls, their education, and their full ability to make their ideas heard are levers for development and peace.

This Day is a reminder that women and girls play a critical role in science and technology communities and that their participation should be strengthened. More girls are in school today than ever before, but they do not always have the same opportunities as boys to complete and benefit from an education of their choice. Too many girls and women are held back by biases, social norms and expectations influencing the quality of the education they receive and the subjects they study. They are particularly under-represented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education, and consequently in STEM careers.

UNESCO’s work in this area aims to:

• Improve the participation, achievement and continuation of girls and women in STEM education and careers to reduce the gender gap in STEM professions.
• Strengthen the capacity of countries to deliver gender-responsive STEM education, including through teacher training, educational contents, and pedagogy.
• Enhance awareness of the importance of STEM education for girls and women.

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When I read about the efforts of the UN, and UNESCO to recognize the critical role that Women and girls should have in Science and Technology, my mind immediately went back to my high school years, when the chemistry classes were part of my subjects, and I learned all about Marie Curie. I cannot say enough how fascinating it was for me; when I was in the Lab classes, it was as if I “knew” all about her! Marie Curie, Physicist and Scientist, received not one but two Nobel Prizes for her work; here is a timeline of her achievements, which were HUGE for a woman and specially in her time!!

It is true that her first Nobel Prize she earned, she did alongside her husband Pierre and it formed also part of a discovery from another Scientist, Henry Becquerel, but it has to be pointed out that her journey getting there, to that first prize was certainly not an easy one!! (Take a look at this video to learn a bit more about Marie & Pierre Curie: https://youtu.be/sSHdaloPlBo)

If there is one thing that we can learn from her journey is that she certainly had Perseverance and Grit; two qualities that go together, at least in her case; she was known for not giving up on herself, nor her goals, and as every scientist, she sure had quite a number of obstacles and failed attempts, but she had Grit, so she tried again and again.

As I mentioned earlier, I always had a soft spot and passion for Chemistry, so reading about women and girls in Science, and coming across this really important element that also marked the achievements of “Superhero Scientist” Marie Curie: namely PERSEVERANCE (closely related to GRIT) I realized that this quality is in many ways the resilience that children accomplish by trying again and again and finally succeeding.

So … PERSEVERANCE … “steady persistence in a course of action, a purpose, a state, etc., especially in spite of difficulties, obstacles, or discouragement.” … Perseverance is not giving up. It is persistence and tenacity, the effort required to do something and keep doing it till the end, even if it’s hard.

Closely related to PERSEVERANCE is GRIT: To have grit means you have courage and show the strength of your character. … A person with true grit has passion and perseverance. Goals are set and followed through. A person who works hard to follow through on commitments has true grit.

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“Grit” is a term which has been showing up in the lexicon recently. It is defined by Angela Lee Duckworth (2013) as “perseverance and passion for long-term goals.”  Perseverance tends to be associated with a steadfastness on mastering skills or completing a task, having a commitment to learning. Grit is a more recent import, much researched by Angela Duckworth, and is defined as “the tendency to sustain interest and effort towards long term goals”.

The concept of grit has implications for how we encourage our children. Can you remember a time yourself when you tried repeatedly to reach a goal and eventually got it, but it was only after failing multiple times? Often those victories mean more than the ones quickly and easily achieved.

• Teach grittiness by example. Try new things and let your child see you struggle and yet keep going. Share age-appropriate stories of when you didn’t reach your goal the first time but tried again, maybe even multiple times.
• Provide challenging kid activities not easily achieved. help your child find reasonable challenges, not those which are so outside of her realm of possibility that there is no way she will be successful.
• Remember that it is OK for your child to get frustrated sometimes. We tend to want to shield our children from frustration and that may not be helping them. He may not be great at everything the first time, but it is sticking with something that is important.
• Offer praise and encouragement for your child’s strong effort. Offer encouragement for completing goals, for not giving up, and for being determined.
• At the same time, recognize that there are times when it is OK to quit.  Sometimes trying multiple times may be more important than reaching the goal.
• Set realistic and age-appropriate challenges.

(Adapted from: From: https://www.brighthorizons.com/family-resources/encouraging-grit-and-teaching-perseverance-to-children)

The effort, the failed attempts, and then trying again, will build resilience in our children; on top of that, it is certainly very important to always remind our children/students that making mistakes or errors, (as Maria Montessori called them), is part of the process; it can motivate them and offer them a kind of unique satisfaction when the task is completed, because they know how much it took them!  Montessori materials are designed in such manner that the child receives instant feedback about his/her progress as he/she works, allowing him/her to recognize, correct, and learn from an error without adult assistance. Putting control of the activity in the child’s hands strengthens his/her self-esteem and self-motivation as well as his/her learning.

So firmly did Dr. Montessori believe in this that she said the teacher should:

“give her lesson, plant the seed and then disappear; observing and waiting, but not touching.” (Montessori, 2005)‍

She was a firm believer of non-interference, and this is exactly why when she designed her materials, they had always an element for “control of error” build in them.

“To make the process one of self-education, it is not enough that the stimulus [the material] should call forth activity, it must also direct it. The child should not only persist for a long time in an exercise; he must persist without making mistakes. All the physical or intrinsic qualities of the objects should be determined, not only by the immediate reaction of attention they provoke in the child, but also by their possession of this fundamental characteristic, the control of error, that is to say the power of evoking the effective collaboration of the highest activities” (comparison, judgment). (Maria Montessori,1917/1965, p. 75)

An example of the “control of error” feature (which really is embedded in all Montessori materials) is in the “Knobbed Cylinders”, where the child observes the relation between size of the opening and the size of the object, these have to fit in perfectly, concentrating his/her attention upon the differences of dimension, comparing them, and ordering them. … and then, there is the “Pink Tower”, ten wooden blocks that diminish in size and which the child orders according to that size; if there is one “misplaced” block the tower will fall.

In addition to developing independence, working with self-correcting materials helps the child learn to recognize, understand, correct, and learn from any mistakes that he/she makes. Having a control of error in the materials liberates the child to take control of the learning and not rely on adult judgment, boosting self-esteem and motivation. Rather than being reluctant to try something new and make mistakes, the child feels free to take risks, knowing there is a control in place. When they are constantly corrected, children learn to be afraid of making mistakes. They begin to limit their exploration and cease to try new or challenging work. By allowing children to self-correct and learn from their mistakes, we teach them that the purpose of work is not just about getting the right answers. It is about the process of learning to learn.

Embedded in these last few paragraphs are quite a few synonyms of the two words that we started with, namely PERSEVERANCE and GRIT: dedication, determination, endurance, persistence, tenacity, courage, and more…

Referring to Marie Curie as an example of both, and of course our beloved Maria Montessori, who also had to face many challenges as a woman in her field as she was the only woman of her time who took the task of studying medicine in a mainly for men reserved world, it seems only natural and necessary that the efforts of the United Nations to fight for the Woman and Girls in the “Science World” have to be joined by all of us indeed!!

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