What Motivates Us?

The other day I was looking at one of the videos we were to watch for this week's class on YouTube.  I found it to be a very interesting look at what motivates us and what one software company does for its employees.  Atlassian, an australian software company, will allow its employees four days a year (once every three months) to work on whatever they want.  The company noticed that the employees would work on fixes for current programs or software or they would create ideas for software and programs.

I began to wonder that what if schools could do something like this.  Give the students one day out of the marking period, to work on anything that they choose.  If a student wants to spend all day in the art room working on a portrait, that's ok.  A group of students can work on creating a song or a musical composition.  It could be possible for students to explore law, mathematics, writing poetry/short stories, etc.  I think that this idea could work at the high school level.  At the middle school level, something like this could be done on a smaller scale.  I am not sure how this would work at an elementary school level.

If students are as truly creative as the attached video claims, and we as educators are trying to control them, then this possibility could be an idea can change all mentality.  I know that we live in a day of standardized tests, and finding ways to squeeze in the cirriculum, and that this might just be another thing to add to a teacher's plate.  I understand that this idea might come off as utopian or far-fetched, but I am curious to see what would happen.  Teachers can work as mentors or better yet partners with students.  Maybe this combination could come up with something extraordinary during this time.  This is definitely going to be an idea that I would like to explore.