How much more focused and engaged would high school students be if they were given an opportunity to pursue their passions – topics that truly sparked their interest and excitement?   A year ago, we helped launch an experiment with 9th graders at the Riverdale Country School, a small independent school in the Bronx.  A year earlier, a new head of school had been hired and he brought to his role a series of ideas about education that ought to be commonplace but are all too rare. Among them: