So Buddhism and other traditions recommend the trinity of a teacher, a teaching, and a community of practitioners as the ideal learning environment. Teachers need to earn their students trust over time. Avoid any who demand complete devotion from the beginning. Pay attention to what teachers do, not just what they say. If not, look elsewhere.
Adolescents reject authority and have a skeptical view of most teachers.
Adults apply intelligent discernment and learn what they can, where they can, whether teachings appear in the form of fools or sages, friends or adversaries, animals, infants, or elders. We also learn through experience and circumstance, hardship and insight. When discovered, he slew the nobleman in self-defense, then fled to a distant province. Unable to find employment, he became a thief, until one morning, in a flash of understanding, Zembu saw what he had made of his life. To atone for the harm he had done, he resolved to accomplish some good deed as a sincere act of repentance.