For a few years, I delivered a keynote about the possible 21st-century careers awaiting our students. When I speak about this topic, people respond by wanting to help kids “find their passions.”
But I think the word “passion” is a problem.
“Passion” Is Unreasonable
When we call something a “passion,” it implies lifelong devotion and intense focus. “Passions” sound like big, important, world-changing ideals. The word means “strong and barely controllable emotion.” Its second meaning is to describe Jesus’ crucifixion.
😳
That’s a bit much to expect – especially of your eight-year-olds. Sure, some of your eight-year-olds will have a passion. That’s great. Encourage it.
But it’s silly to expect passion from people.
My “Passion” Is Just An “Interest”
People ask me how I developed my “passion” for gifted education.
But, the reality is, I randomly ended up with this job. It was 2008, the start of the Great Recession. Teaching jobs were impossible to find. I was a newlywed. I would have done anything for a paycheck. I was offered a job that happened to be in a gifted program. I took it!
Once I started working in gifted education, I became interested in it. This interest continued to develop as I learned more. But I would have been just as interested in teaching any other group. I came from a special education background. I was interested in that as well. Had I taught high school science, I would probably have found that interesting, too!
There was no burning passion that drove me to gifted ed. It was a random event that I then became interested in.
Interests Just Pop Up
This is how most interests happen. We randomly experience something we like and then we dig deeper. If we like what we find, we keep digging. When we get bored, we move onto something else.
In fact, I think it was the expectation to “have a passion” that kept me from starting my career until I was 27. I felt like I needed “strong and barely controllable emotion” towards something. And I just didn’t have that!
“Passion” is a pretty intimidating expectation.
So, realizing this, I’ve really worked to cut back on the word “passion” and use “interests” instead.
Why I Like “Interests”
Interests are not intimidating. You can have lots of them.They don’t have to be world-changing. But! Interests can become something bigger, given enough time and resources.
An interest can absolutely evolve into something greater. After some initial draw, we explore. We learn more. We uncover sub-interests and then sub-sub interests. Sometimes we grow bored, other times we keep going deeper.
Interests appear randomly and grow organically. We cannot know what we’re interested in until we see it. And we can’t tell if an interest will grow into something greater or just die off.
My interest in gifted education began with a random event. A decade later, it’s grown and evolved as I’ve explored the topic. I’ve found sub-topics I’m particularly interested in. And I expect this interest to continue evolving. I certainly hope I’m not doing the exact same thing in five years! It’s okay to move on when an interest becomes, well, less interesting.
We should also expect kids’ interests to grow, evolve, and often die off.
Exposing Interests
As a teacher, I shifted my focus to help students discover various interests. I’d gently expose them to as many topics as possible, giving them room and support to explore at their own pace and in their own style.
We can help students find interests by:
- watching movies with them
- wandering through book stores
- going to museums
- browsing YouTube
- meeting professionals
- attending all kinds of events
- following fun folks on social media
But we can’t meddle with the process too much. We can provide resources, we can offer guidance, but when we try to force things, the interest can vanish in a puff.
Interest Come and Go
It’s okay when interests end. It’s okay when they change. Don’t think of it as a waste when a child spends three years obsessing over ballet only to become fascinated by golf in year four.
It’s important to learn how to get good at being interested! Being interested is a skill. It means you are comfortable with finding information, mastering basics, getting better, and learning to say no to what’s no longer interesting.
We can learn to become interested and, therefore, interesting.
I’d much rather chat with someone who has lots of interesting interests than someone who won’t can only go on about their singular passion.
Interest Combine
The true power of gathering many interests is that, one day, the perfect set of interests combine and, like Voltron, become something greater than their parts.
Byrdseed is a culmination of past interests: recording music, taking art classes, acting in school plays, reading every book about dinosaurs, learning about startups, and running a high school youth group.
Of course, along the road, none of these things seemed related. You might have told me along the way, “Ian! You need to focus!” Many did. But it’s really that lack of focus that gives me lots of background knowledge to draw from. It helps me easily jump into new interesting topics.
Goodbye “Passion”, Hello “Interests”
So let’s stop expecting passions from students (and ourselves). It’s unreasonable. Encourage interests. Even when they change. Even when they seem meaningless. You never know what they’ll turn into.
And, if you are, ahem, interested in this topic, I highly recommend the book So Good They Can’t Ignore You.