Passion is a desire, insistence, and willingness to give a gift. The artist is relentless. She says, "I will not feel complete until I give a gift." This is more than refusing to to do lousy work. It's an insistence on doing important work. (Godin, 2010).
I think that most of education's supposed woes could be solved fairly easily by just focusing on what's important. When we get to spend at least half our time doing what we feel is important, it makes life easier, more fun, and really more productive.
Here's an example. The students watched some TED Talks last Friday. One by Daniel Pink talked about the "Surprising Science of Motivation." Watch it at http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html
Lia H., one of my students shared these comments on our class blog. Check it out at http://wms.podcasts.westside66.org/users/skroenke/blog/
"I thought that Daniel Pink's new (or old, apparently) take on the way businesses should be run was very innovative. One example I can think of that may give further proof to this theory is our Choice Project in English. It was a lot more fun to be able to write about whatever you wanted and present it in your own way. We probably would've been willing to do it even if we'd get a B without doing the work; we could do something WE cared about. That's a good argument for 20% time and the fact that incentives aren't as much needed as opportunities to be creative."
So, basically, Daniel Pink, Lia (a bright young mind, and I all agree that life is about finding our passion and having time to do the "important work." That's what it is to be passionate.
Zappos.com and Tony Hseih's book Delivering Happiness happen to be two of my favorite examples of where doing what people are passionate about creates good business sense as well as all around good living and happiness.
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