If you’re reading this, thank you for rejecting screenagers, meanagers and countless other negative stereotypes that cause most adults to summarily exclude this age group in their organizatios. Whether young people are advocating for public schools, taking on billion dollar corporations, or reshaping the way adults see the world, their points of view carry a unique influence. Here are a few illuminating podcasts that remind us of how everyone gains a wider lens when adults chart a new path of youth inclusion and commitment to intergenerational growth.
Get Schooled
On Election Day 2024, the Kentucky Student Voice Team played a crucial role in defeating a ballot amendment that sought to divert funding from public schools to private institutions. Imagine if only lobbyists and legislators had been active in this high stakes campaign . Two students interviewed highlighted how rural schools would be severely impacted, a perspective that carries significant weight—perhaps even more than that of the teachers’ union president or the legislator featured in this KSVT mini-series.
Baltimore Teens Persist!
This unforgettable episode of Code Switch delves into the fight against the $30 billion rail company CSX. Teens describe their reliance on their younger peers to bring “new ideas” and fresh tactics to this ongoing campaign, such as leaving bags of coal on policymakers’ doorsteps. These young citizen scientists combine hard evidence about coal dust with the lived experiences of elders, many battling cancer to make their case to state policy makers. . The co-host marvels at the “mutual respect” that emerges and admits she was initially concerned about exposing these youths to “grown-up cynicism.”
Why Adults Lose the ‘Beginner’s Mind’
I love “children are the R&D wing of our species” in this Ezra Klein podcast. I have experienced many aha moments when hearing a new idea that emerges from a group of teens that oxygenates my mind. Professor Alison Gopnik describes “this kind of rebirth of plasticity and flexibility in adolescence…[to] consider new kinds of social possibilities, and to take the information that they got from the people around them and say, ‘OK, given that that’s true, what’s something new that we could do? What’s something different from what we’ve done before?'”
How to Better Understand Teens
This episode on 1A flips the script by starting with insights from 15- and 16-year-olds, followed by Ellen Galinsky, author of “The Breakthrough Years.” She credits 40 teens across the U.S. as
“co-creators” who took my research in a completely different direction than if I had just looked at the literature or just talked to adults.
Galinsky quotes a 12-year-old’s advice to adults: “Listen with – when I was a child’s mind – as well as now – I’m an adult’s mind. In other words, understand our perspective, not just your perspective.” So much can be gained by this commitment to intergenerational interdependence.
Now It’s Your Turn. Please Share Your Favorites!
Photo Credit: Partnership for Southern Equity CEO, adult and youth staff
Youth Infusion 