In How We Think, Dewey says that a shift from an attitude-of-play to an attitude-of-work is not a shift in interest in activities for their own sake to an interest in results and products. Instead, it is only a change in the type of activity the child is interested in: she declines those that are moved forward by whim in favor of those that move toward a product. She can be interested in an activity for its own sake and prefer that activity because it leads to a product.

He then says that we jump kids from Kindergarten play activity with no goals to 1st-grade work activity with excessively remote and external goals. Rarely do kids get to work toward goals that align with their immediate interests, which he says is the only way to learn.