Don’t Just Hand Them a Mic—Give Them a Seat
By: Chuck Khoury
Earlier this week, Bo Wright and I shared why this summer needs to mark a turning point in strategy and mindset. Today, I want to take that conversation further by focusing on the most powerful and overlooked lever we have for transformation: student agency.
When the U.S. recently announced new tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles and semiconductors, business leaders were reminded once again that we live in a world of constant, unpredictable interconnection. These weren’t just political moves—they were global tremors, reshaping supply chains and shifting the stakes for innovation and diplomacy. The lesson? In today’s world, relevance requires the ability to hold complexity, adapt in real time, and lead across differences.
And no one understands that better—or is more prepared to navigate it—than this generation of young people.
Yet the dominant narrative we’ve constructed about them tells a very different story.
Scan the headlines and you’ll see it: “The Most Anxious Generation Ever.” “A Crisis of Belonging.” “Stuck in Screens.” Over and over, these stories pile up—and in many ways, they’ve begun to solidify a dangerous perception in the minds of adults. One that paints young people as fragile, distracted, and disconnected. One that suggests we should manage them, rather than trust them.
We beg to differ.
The young people in our classrooms and communities are not a cautionary tale. They are a blueprint for what’s next. Informed, digitally fluent, and attuned to identity, equity, and change, they’re not passively consuming the world. Young people today are shaping the world. And they’re doing so with more awareness and intentionality than many adults give them credit for.
And the pace of change they’re living through is unprecedented. A 2023 McKinsey report found that the rate of technological and social transformation over the past 20 years has outpaced the previous 100. Let that sink in. This generation has come of age in a world being rapidly rewritten by climate change, by artificial intelligence, by geopolitical instability, and by cultural flux. And yet we’re still asking them to learn inside a model built for the Industrial Age.
We are blocking their brilliance with outdated structures. And it’s costing all of us.
Earlier this week, my colleague Bo Wright reflected on the opportunity summer gives us to rethink what it truly means to be “prepared.” I want to build on that. Because the truth is, we’ll never prepare students for what’s ahead by keeping them at the margins of their education. The only path forward is to turn schools into communities—ones where students don’t just have a voice, but have power.
This is their education. Their future. They’ve evolved beyond being passive recipients of content, and our failure to evolve with them is a big part of why so many are disengaged.
The role of any educator has fundamentally changed. The mandate now is clear: build systems with students, not for them. For years, we’ve treated student voice like a side quest. We have reduced student voice to focus groups, a checkbox on a survey, or a panel at a conference. But that’s not leadership. That’s symbolism.
Don’t just hand them a mic. Give them a seat. Because when young people are co-designers of their learning environments, everything shifts. Engagement deepens, retention improves, and staff feel more energized and aligned. The whole system becomes more human, more responsive, and more sustainable.
Forget what came before. This is now. And no one understands now better than they do. They live on the cutting edge of culture and technology. They know how to build digital communities, how to source global perspectives, how to question, remix, and reimagine. If you’re looking for innovation—real, functional, future-ready innovation—start there.
Go back to the basics.
Get to know them.
Don’t invite student voice as a PR move.
Do it because it makes sense.
Do it because it works.
Do it authentically.
After years in this work that include countless initiatives, reforms, and cycles of “transformation”, I’ve learned that the most powerful shifts come when we stop underestimating young people and start listening and building beside them.
They aren’t the problem. They’re the point.
Let’s stop talking about the future and start building it—with the people who are already living it.