Are we teaching the right things?

The 'net is buzzing over an article called What You'll Wish You'd Known by computer scientist and dot-com success Paul Graham. The article is interesting, but I don't think most kids will take the time to read it--by their standards, it's way too long (a topic for another discussion).

But you can always rely on the geeks that inhabit SlashDot to not only read this stuff, but critique it extensively, and one comment jumped right off the page at me:

"...why didn't anyone, not even my parents, tell me that I could actually start my own business and not have to necessarily go and get a job working for someone else?"

Bingo! Here's a young guy who perfectly fits the profile of the 21st Century entrepreneur and businessperson. Our young people are ready and anxious to get going, to create new businesses, to get into space, to wrangle the global economy.

But his comment raises a question. What are we doing in our schools to give our youth the skills they need? Are you, in your community, lamenting the fact that young people don't stay to live and to work? If you are, what are you doing to reform your schools to give them the skills to start their own businesses in their home towns, instead of feeling like they have to move away to find a job?