Episode 76: The Promise, Possibility, and Power of Adolescence

With George Abalekpor and Eleanor Daugherty

Available September 30, 2025

As educators, we are always focused on ways to help our students thrive as they move through the K-12 experience and beyond. But often, we inadvertently frame adolescence as a period characterized by problems and challenges, rather than a developmental moment that can be inherently powerful and positive. How do we reframe how we think about adolescence, how we build the student experience for teens, and how we can focus on the work we are doing to ensure that our students transition from our schools to higher education with a full sense of their own agency? George Abalekpor and Eleanor Daugherty of Georgetown University join host Debra Wilson to share their wisdom.

Guests: George Abalekpor and Eleanor Daugherty

Resources, Transcript, and Expanded Show Notes

In This Episode:

• “I will forever remember this student who said, ‘You keep asking me how I am, and then you correct my tone of voice.’ And just this idea of, we need to get over ourselves. If we want to truly and authentically connect and create scholarship and practice that is meaningful for today's adolescent, we need to listen a bit more and abandon a little bit the watch your tone of voice, young lady. Those little corrective behaviors are actually stifling the presence, the authentic presence of adolescents.” (22:05)
• “So youth, I think more than anything, they want to feel as though their schooling matters. They want to feel that they are getting a sense of meaning and purpose in their education. And I think to tie it all together, I think co-creation is an answer to that solution. It's something that I think is tangible, can be honestly pretty easily developed in all educational spaces, and it allows for meaning because when you give youth an opportunity to be active participants in not just affecting policies, but affecting policies that specifically impact them and communities that they're involved in, there's automatically a sense of purpose that is attached to that.” (34:42)

Related Episodes: 75; 70; 67; 60; 59; 51; 40; 22

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