My students think that I am dumb.  Denis is smart, he knows senators of Vermont who say nice things.  And Damon doesn't care for award winning books.  They suck as far as he is concerned. 
And fetal alcohol is a condition by which a person suffers the effects of alcohol while sitting in utero.  And the detachment.  The blank stares are about turning off.  Or not having the knowledge of how to turn on.
I remember when I was dating a man who said that his first wife would say things that were so loud emotionally, the words would seer past all his filters and jolt him to "awake." 
Perhaps Damon need words that will jolt him awake.  I would like to see this young man experience awakefulness.  Presently he experiences a sense of unhappiness because a beautiful young woman, a high school student is able to brave a boundary with him.  What a concept.  A boundary.  What a turn on.  That someone would have the balls to say, "Sorry, you took the last of my blood.  Now, I am going to take care of myself.  I am not going to spill blood on your account."  Wow. 
My students challenge me daily. 

Two more books.  "Writer's Guide to Character Traits" by Edelstein (1999) and "Developing Minds" by Costa (1991). 
I like Edelstein because she did such a nice job documenting where all her stuff came from (pp 318-331 of references).  Costa's book looks a little old, and I think when it comes to developing minds, methods have been around for a while.  William Shakespeare, I would think, did not have his teachers reading about how to develop his mind.  Einstein was thought to be "cognitively disabled" before he was seven ("cognitively disabled" is the respectful term replacing the mean sounding terms).
I work with a disabled adolescent who can draw better than most regular education students and better than some gifted art students.  Her metaphors for undertstanding science are based on SpongeBob and CatDog.  I would like to employ her to develop video claymation.  Any takers want to help on that?