Extreme environments, such as polar regions or space crafts, provide an analogue for speculations concerning the needs of, educational provisions for, and environmental impacts on ghetto youth in kindergarten through the third grade. This discussion first centers on the common qualities of an extreme environment (whether exotic or mundane): forced socialization, spatial isolation, depression, time elasticity, biological dysrhythmia, sociological dysrhythmia, increased free time, extremes of noise and silence, loneliness, fears of abandonment, anxiety, panic, information fractionalization, boredom, and inability to escape. These qualities are thought to offer specific intervention and prevention sites for the attenuation of environmental consequences. After exploring aspects of stress management in relationship to the needs of the young ghetto child, the discussion shifts to consider optimal characteristics of the 21st-century citizen, notable cosmopolitanism, that can be nurtured in the early school years. The concluding discussion postulates essential elements in education for young children in the 21st-century. In addition to attaining knowledge of the range and scope of intellectual possibilities, it is argued that ghetto youth should learn the consequences of pride and flexibility and, especially in the areas of health and racism, acquire concepts and skills enabling them to more adequately control their destiny. (RH)