You're famous for your TED talk on how schools kill creativity. Your book Finding Your Element is more self-help. Did you scale down your ambition?
No. At TED they think that talk has been seen by maybe 300 million people because it gets shown at events. It's not "Gangnam Style," I grant you. It was an attempt to say that there are features of mass education which militate against individuality and creativity. At the heart of my argument is a different conception of talent, ability and what drives people. That's what this book's about.
As a child, you had polio. How did that affect the direction of your life?
It was supposed until I was 4 that I was going to be a soccer player. I was fast and strong and had a feel for it. Then I got polio. My dad, who left school at 14, said, "It's perfectly clear that you're not going to be able to make a living doing manual work." So I had to study. I'm not saying it's all been wonderful. But I've often thought about what I would be doing otherwise. I'd probably be running a sports bar.
Why do people need to find their element?
There are a lot of people who don't enjoy the work they do at all. They tolerate it and wait for the weekend. But I also meet people who love what they do and couldn't imagine doing anything else. The expression we use is that they're in their element. It's what ignites their energy.
What about jobs that ignite nobody but still have to be done?
Passion is as diverse as talent. We shouldn't rush to judgment about what other people get from the work they do. That said, my argument is not just about what you do for a living but to find some point in the week, in your life, where you do things that really fulfill you.
Don't people go to school to discover their element?
Part of the transformation we need in education is to think differently about talent. The figures in the U.S. are very worrying. It has one of the highest nongraduation rates in the developed world despite spending more money on education than many.
So how do we fix that?
We individualize it. Education is being driven more and more by testing. We pay a high price for this in terms of kids' interest. I can't imagine there's a student in America who gets up in the morning hoping he can improve the state's test scores.
Are you suggesting that kids shouldn't go to college?
No, but it's important to question this assumption that if you don't go to college, your life is over.
Have you seen change in education and seen it work?
I still think we have a way to go in the political culture when it comes to education. These are long-term changes. If you look at what's happening in Finland, it's taken over 20 years to get to where they are. China has a 20-year education plan. You can't do this in six months or in the life of a Congress.
You worked in Ireland on the peace process. Can schools be a part of solving ongoing conflicts?
We're moving forward very quickly technologically as a species, but we're not evolving very quickly in terms of our cultural empathy and our ability to live together. Education is at the center of that process.
Social media made you famous, but you worry about it. Why?
I'm on Facebook. I tweet. But if you really want to understand your own possibilities, you've got to spend more time with yourself.