There is a substantial difference between encouraging a child to persevere and essentially saying, Figure it out on your own. 

Children need productive struggle. They need to encounter difficulty, experience frustration, and discover that frustration does not mean failure. But perhaps one of the most important signs of becoming self-sufficient is knowing when to ask for help. 

I was reminded of this recently when our Middle Years Principal, Gary, shared something candidly with students and colleagues: one of the things he himself needs to work on is asking for help. 

I thought it was a profound message for an adult educator to model for children. Asking for help is not an admission of inadequacy. It is an acknowledgment that none of us, kids or adults, know everything or can do everything alone. 

Then, just days later, I came across a recent New York Times guest essay by Angela Duckworth herself. Interestingly, the author of Grit was making essentially the same point. Duckworth writes that the high achievers she has studied consistently recognize how much other people have contributed to their success. She also points to research showing that knowing when to seek assistance is an important skill in learning and achievement. 

Perhaps, then, we should broaden our understanding of perseverance.
Grit does not mean going it alone.

Sometimes perseverance means trying again. Sometimes it means changing strategies. And sometimes it means looking across the table at a classmate or walking up to a teacher and saying three important words: 
“Can you help?” 

Asking for Help Requires Trust 
This is where the idea becomes especially meaningful at High Meadows. 

We can tell children to ask for help, but their willingness to do so depends considerably on the environment we create around them. 

A child says, “I don’t understand,” only when there is enough trust to risk revealing uncertainty. A student approaches a teacher only when they believe the teacher wants to be approached. A child admits, “I’m stuck,” only when being stuck is treated as a normal part of learning rather than evidence of inadequacy. 
In other words, asking for help requires belonging, trust, and psychological safety. 

These aren't simply admirable qualities for a school community. They are conditions for learning. 
A child who feels known can take a risk. A child who feels respected can admit uncertainty. A child who believes questions are valued can ask one without worrying that everyone else already knows the answer. 
And a child who trusts a teacher can say, “I need help.” 

Productive Struggle Is Not Solitary Struggle 
This idea also fits naturally with the inquiry and experiential learning that characterizes a High Meadows education. 

When children investigate questions, undertake projects, explore the natural environment, collaborate with classmates, and test ideas, the answer is not always immediately apparent. 

That is part of the point. We want children to ask the next question. We want them to hypothesize, experiment, receive feedback, revise their thinking, and try again. Learning should occasionally be messy. 

Our woods, meadows, gardens, trails, and outdoor learning spaces make this especially tangible. Nature rarely provides one predetermined path to the correct answer. Children observe. They wonder. They test ideas. Something doesn't work. They reconsider. They ask someone else what they noticed. 

Not knowing what to do next is not the end of learning. Often, it is the beginning of deeper learning. 

The educator's role, therefore, is neither to eliminate struggle nor to leave children alone in it. It is to know children well enough to recognize when to encourage another attempt, when to pose another question, and when to offer assistance. 

This is also why relatively small classes matter. Their value is not simply more individual academic attention. Small classes allow teachers to know children, notice the child who has stopped raising a hand, and distinguish between the student who needs encouragement to persevere and the student who needs another explanation or simply the reassurance of an adult sitting beside them. 

Independence Through Interdependence 
Duckworth describes what researchers call an “illusion of self-sufficiency”. We tend to underestimate how much of what we know and can do comes from other people. She cites an experiment in which children who received demonstrations and hints overwhelmingly succeeded at a task another group could not solve independently. Remarkably, many later believed they could have figured it out on their own. 

Perhaps independence and interdependence are not opposites. Perhaps we become independent through our relationships with others. 

We understandably celebrate when a child can say:
“I did it!” 

But perhaps we should celebrate another sentence just as enthusiastically: 
“I didn’t know how to do it, so I asked for help—and then I learned.” 

Think about what that sentence contains. There is self-awareness: I don’t know this yet. There is growth mindset: I can become more capable. There is perseverance: I am not giving up. There is agency: I can do something about being stuck. There is courage: I am willing to ask. And there is community: There are people around me whom I trust. 

Perhaps that is growth mindset and grit in their fullest forms. 

At High Meadows, our goal is not to educate children who never need anyone else's help. None of us ever reaches that point. Our goal is to develop confident, capable young people who know when to persevere independently, when to change course, when to collaborate, and when to reach out. 

Sometimes grit means trying one more time. And sometimes grit is having the courage—and the trust—to say: 
“I could use some help.”