Much depends on the options that the kid even considers. If they're growing up on a farm environment, then their natural curiosity will drive them towards the skills that are useful and interesting in that environment - from the article it appears that they are learning a lot of skills that are useful for a farmer or a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, since it brings immediate feedback and is consistent with the opportunities that they have there.
Have they interacted with lawyers, saxophone players, programmers, art historians, ballet dancers or microbiologists in any meaningful way to practically consider it a viable lifestyle that they could understand and identify with, to consider it as a normal available option? Given their current situation, will they do so in any time soon? A few years in college would do it but that's a bit too late. You can't really understand if you'll like a profession if you haven't seen/felt how the daily life of it looks like, that's why this choice is often dominated by your local environment and public role models.
The point of general education is that kids are in the process of 'searching for themselves' and a large part of them don't and can't choose their future direction until near-adulthood or later. If at the age of nine you're consciously preparing to be an astronaut ninja fireman or unconsciously preparing to be a farmer, then it doesn't really correlate with "what your passion is" and what you'll want to do when you're 20 or 30. And at that time point, if you have significant gaps in key education areas, then it cuts off your options. If after puberty you figure out you'd really like to be a doctor, and you spent two hours per month (as the article states) on science and math, then you're simply not getting in med school.
Have they interacted with lawyers, saxophone players, programmers, art historians, ballet dancers or microbiologists in any meaningful way to practically consider it a viable lifestyle that they could understand and identify with, to consider it as a normal available option? Given their current situation, will they do so in any time soon? A few years in college would do it but that's a bit too late. You can't really understand if you'll like a profession if you haven't seen/felt how the daily life of it looks like, that's why this choice is often dominated by your local environment and public role models.
The point of general education is that kids are in the process of 'searching for themselves' and a large part of them don't and can't choose their future direction until near-adulthood or later. If at the age of nine you're consciously preparing to be an astronaut ninja fireman or unconsciously preparing to be a farmer, then it doesn't really correlate with "what your passion is" and what you'll want to do when you're 20 or 30. And at that time point, if you have significant gaps in key education areas, then it cuts off your options. If after puberty you figure out you'd really like to be a doctor, and you spent two hours per month (as the article states) on science and math, then you're simply not getting in med school.