Of course nature and nurture both participate in our making, but my years as a school teacher in Mississippi led me to a particular appreciation of the powerful and devastating role of the latter. And despite good intentions and overwhelming efforts, I and many of my peers often feared that, for many of our students, we were just too late.
With that in mind, do go listen to (at least the first act of) the “Going Big” episode of the great NPR program, This American Life. I am convinced that this is what the solution looks like.