Young people. They are as diverse and complicated as their elders, but not as experienced. How can we use our experience to make their growth easier and to bring out the best in them?

Readers are encouraed to jump in and say what they'd think helpful, via comments. All serious thinking on the question is helpful. More so, I'd expect, than organizing seminars and discussions bringing in politicians to say, "How we need to fix education, and steps that have to be taken." Where that is the start and then the politicians split, pro-union or union-busting, depending on party affiliation bias. That gets us zippo progress and understanding - and is all heat and no light if the pow-wow is organized to only include one party's minions.

This link.

I use Strib as a lead-in. First, this relatively young person looks perplexed in considering behaviors of some, younger than her. She is identified by Strib as Principal at Coon Rapids High School, in a report of suspensions and cyber-bullying, here.

My high school principal was an old guy with the back office and had zippo interaction with students that I can recall. The assistant principal, Mr. Kenny, dealt with disciplinary issues. He had one glass eye, and it was disconcerting when he stared at you and without his telling you to you looked him in the eye and felt he saw right through you. He was a good pick for the job.

In starting grade school I remember my first three grades were taught by middle aged women who had nothing memorable about them, but I very quickly learned the layout of the principal's office and found it more interesting than the classrooms - the probable reason I ended up there frequently. The school was made a historical landmark in the last ten or fifteen years, and I vividly recall a to me massive  grandfather-clock that apparently was wired into all the classroom bells, there being no clock to watch in the classrooms. I also recall starting first grade mid-year and being held from recess so the teacher could go through the Dick-and-Jane-and-Spot big book to assure I "caught up" and it was hard because I was distressed with all the rest of the class outside running off energy and I was stuck there having my reading skills screwed up by a well-intentioned idiot who wanted to assure I went one word at a time and not sentence by sentence and page by page, quickly. I do recall that. It must have been the style then, and thought to be good teaching. I don't think the woman was a Sadist wanting to screw up the way people read. Just wrong-headed.

I also recall the Masonic Temple was next-door to the school and when we left the play yard during recess to scout it out we ended up seeing that big clock, and being scolded to not do that again without being told a thing about who the Masons were, what was wrong with scouting them out when we could, etc. Who knows, without that education, I might be thirty-third degree by now. But I digress. I wonder if the Temple's still there, and if so, whether it too has been designated a historic landmark. Both buildings probably deserved it.

Anyway, that is Strib item one - about the young and restless. Then there's this prize youngster. Can you say entrenched bozo, already, at age 20. He needs the encouragement the court system gave some during my time, to try the military to have a chance to be hammered into shape. I do not think courts do that enough any more, or the military is more selective - probably both. Who knows - with the right mentoring he might be channeled into being a successful businessman. He does appear to know what he wants and to act directly toward fulfilling a goal, and those seem to be skills in the businessmen's community.

Last, the prize - how do we get more like this young man and keep this kid on track so he might become the next Steve Jobs instead of an assistant professor at a branch college or deadended in some Silicon Valley or NSA desk job? We do need the best and brightest to prosper and reach the positions of actual and not false responsibility. We need that because otherwise the less best, less brightest end up there and it's a pain for the rest of us to have to tolerate their holding posiitons of responsibility instead of being able to ignore them. We need the Das guy to go to Congress because otherwise we suffer the Joe Liebermans and Michele Bachmanns, and at his age, In an eyeblink I would swap in the Das kid to take Bachmann's job there, and expect him to do it well better than Bachmann has faced responsibilities.

My guess is parenting is a big factor. And genetics. Nurture and nature.

Any reader thoughts?