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How passion grows
Playing at many things gives a child a broad understanding of the world. Then one thing grabs them, and they love doing it so much that they keep at it until they are good.
A child who has grown up making their own plans keeps doing it. By the teenage years, with a living to earn before long, the question becomes how to make that living doing what they love and what matters to them.
Unschooled adults
A psychologist studied about 150 people who grew up unschooled, learning at home with the freedom to choose what, when, and how, or who attended a self-directed school such as the Sudbury Valley School, where children of all ages mix and run their own lives. A very high percentage of them went into careers that are direct extensions of their passionate interests.
For some, the career matters because it does good for the world, which is common. For others, an artist for example, the work matters because it is who they are, whether or not anyone enjoys it.
Why do freely chosen interests stick?
Psychologists Edward Deci and Richard Ryan developed self-determination theory, which holds that people sustain effort most readily on activities they choose for themselves. Their studies, beginning in the 1970s, found that when people were rewarded or pressured to do something they already enjoyed, their interest in it often dropped afterward. Activities chosen out of curiosity are driven from the inside, which is what researchers call intrinsic motivation.
How does a Sudbury school run itself?
The Sudbury Valley School opened in 1968 in Framingham, Massachusetts. Students of all ages mix freely, and no classes are required. A school meeting, in which every student and every staff member holds one vote, makes the rules and decides on matters such as hiring staff and spending the budget.
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