The Untapped Potential of Teenagers

Shane Koyczan, a spoken word poet, once said, the tiniest dream that you make happen is
worth more than the biggest dream that you never attempt. Shane Koyczan started writing
poetry and following his dreams when he was a teenager. He dreamed of being a writer, and
kept journals filled with thoughts and rhymes. This was just an idle teenage dream, but
Koyczan is now a published author and tours the country for conferences and poetry
competitions. American teenagers today often dream big but lack in follow through. Every
adolescent has an issue or movement they are passionate about, and every teenager has the
potential to enact change. This potential is often underestimated, and teenagers are expected to
put their passions on hold. While many teens know they want to make a difference, they
assume they have to wait because theyre too young. (44 sec)
The summer before my sophomore year, I was convinced that my ability to bring about
change was so limited, it wasnt even worth attempting. My mom took me to a presentation at
WorldLink, an organization at USD that aims to empower students to learn about local and
international issues and engage in thoughtful discussion about solutions. The presentation was
an exhibition of the work done by the summer interns throughout their internship, and before
they even started talking I was intimidated. I read through their resumes and started internally
reeling as I realized how involved in their communities each of these students were. One girl
started an organization that filled durable red bags with food and supplies for the homeless in
San Diego. One of the boys was the head of the newspaper at his school and had documented
every major protest since he was a freshman, later getting published in online magazines and
journals. I was astounded. How were these people just a few years older than me so much
more accomplished? I chalked it up to the fact that they were superhuman, and sat down to
listen to their presentations. To my shock, they were not superheroes bitten by radioactive
spiders, in fact they presented the same way we had in class the day before. There were the
required amount of ums and ah's, and I realized that these teenagers were just like me. The
things they had accomplished had nothing to do with extra time in each day or an increase in
radioactivity, rather a drive to get up off the couch and use their free time to fight for the
things they cared about. (2:06)
The presentation ended, and I signed up for the WorldLink mailing list. A month later, I started
my internship. A few months after that, I cofounded an organization called ET4T that provides
support services for kids with life threatening illnesses and their siblings. We run tutoring,
music classes, art therapy, and do everything we can to make their lives a little easier. One of
the little girls we help is nine years old and has terminal stage leukemia. Her name is Kimi and
shes been fighting with cancer for six years. A few months ago she started coming to ET4T
because she wanted to learn how to play the guitar. She got a signed guitar from Taylor Swift,
and started taking lessons from a 14 year old named Michael twice a week. Kimi brightens up
every room she walks into. Since she joined ET4T weve had dance parties and Taylor Swift
sing alongs every week. Recently the doctors told her dad that treatment wasnt working

anymore and there wasnt much more they could do. Her dad flew her to New York for an
experimental treatment, and were waiting on the results right now. After her lessons, the one
thing Kimi wanted was to play for an audience. We called as many venues as we could, and
last weekend Kimi played three songs at Humphreys. 150 people showed up to hear her play,
and when she sang Yellow Submarine, the entire room sang with her. None of this would have
happened without ET4T, without five teenagers who decided they wanted to make a change.
All it took for me to start doing the things I cared about was the realization that I could make a
difference despite my age. (3:34)
When you expect more from people, you get more and this includes teenagers. In a sophomore
project, teachers did exactly that. They decided that the idea of fifty teenagers coming together
and raising enough money to buy and run a food truck wasnt completely crazy, and the
students pulled through. The project wasnt perfect, and the truck got pushed across town
farther than it drove, but in the end fifty teenagers accomplished something that they were told
time and time again that they were too young for. While this wasnt the solution to a world
issue, it was an immense endeavor that took drive and hard work. If teenagers can work so
hard on a food truck that is irrelevant to their lives, they can move mountains when its
something they actually care about. (4:12)
Teenagers are naturally passionate about a cause. This passion is important because it brings a
drive for change that brings a much needed and creative perspective to many problems. An
example of this is Jack Andraka, a teen who designed a new and more effective way to
diagnose pancreatic cancer after a family friend passed away due to a delayed diagnosis.
Andraka contacted two hundred researchers for lab space at various institutions and received
one yes. He was driven to carry out his project because it meant something to him and in the
end, his creative take on it allowed him to surpass those in the field and come up with a
solution. He took a simple concept he learned about in class and applied it in a new way
Andraka is proof that this assumption that adolescents are unable to enact real change in both
their communities and the world is stunting the progression of society as a whole. For every
Jack Andraka who pushed through the idea that he was too young to make change there are
hundreds of teenagers who stay home and tell themselves they cant do it. Hundreds of
nagging ideas that if carried out, could lead to cures, organizations, and large scale community
service. (5:16)
This isnt to say that every teenager is going to cure cancer or bring on world peace, but there are
approximately 21 million teenagers in the United States alone and if every single one got off the
couch and fought for something they cared about, the change would be far greater than any one
person could realize. Whether this means giving a dollar to the man on the street corner, or
volunteering at the local animal shelter, the one thing every teenager has is time and
individuality. (5:40)

The individuality of a teenager is just as important as their passion and drive. Having a new
perspective pre-college where everyone learns from the same textbooks and learns the rules,
teenagers still have a break the rules mentality that allows them to sidestep some of the problems
adults face. Not only does this allow for creative problem solving, it means that each teenager is
driven to solve a different problem. Were teaching teenagers to succeed at writing papers and
following the rules at the same time that a workplace filled with problems demands creativity
and problem solving. We need to move past the stigma that accompanies adolescence and
understand the impact every single individual can have on the world around them regardless of
age. (6:21 in addition to a 30 second video so about 6:51 and I tend to talk slower when Im not
reading)

Works Cited
"Age and Sex Composition in the United States: 2012." Age and Sex. United States Census Bureau,
n.d. Web. 03 Dec. 2015. <http://www.census.gov/population/age/data/2012comp.html>.