It’s funny to think that through my time at this school, I have been through three different principals and three different administrations. Each year, a new head would take over the school and lead in their style, the environment at school would change and so would the student body.
The one thing that would remain constant, however, would be Common Sense. It, too, cycled through new editors-in-chief, page editors and staff writers but the atmosphere of this classroom was and is immovable. That is because it is an atmosphere fueled by the shared passion of student writer after student writer to advocate for groups, cover school events and share their own experiences.
Not many teachers have the privilege of being able to witness grades grow and mature, and are only as fortunate as being able to keep a class one semester at a time. And those seven semesters of having the same people in my class made the world of a difference. The bonds created in those classes are unbreakable forces, tied to each other through the shared experience of having to approach random students, interview teachers you’ve never had and keeping all your interview notes stashed in the notes app of your phone. The aspect of having a family, a community, is one that will never leave me.
Moving up from a clueless staff writer to a page editor has taught me that nothing is more frustrating than staring at Photoshop and Indesign for hours at a time but it has also taught me innumerable patience and allowed me to hear stories that I would not have gotten to know otherwise. In a school that tends to be divided by friend group, newspaper has united people from all backgrounds and blessed me with people that I could not have pictured myself without.
Ms. Starr once said that despite how sad you may be about it, once you leave a place, you lose the position that you hold there. Graduated seniors love to come back and visit their old teachers, catch up on how crazy all the underclassmen are now, but the harsh reality is that they no longer belong here. They have come in hopes of finding that their presence is still missing, an open spot that encases their old contributions, only to find that that spot has been filled and is being taken care of by somebody else. Rather than relying on nostalgia, you must acknowledge that the world keeps spinning and that in order to allow this pattern to continue, you must find your own path. And so the way that my old editors-in-chief have been able to trust and pass down the position onto me, Alex, Claire and Heerah, we are all passing it down to the next grade.
If you’re reading this and you have the possibility of joining newspaper or advising someone else to join, please do. It is an experience that I know you will cherish. So for the four years that I spent in room 242, under the supervision of an incredible Ms. Starr, thank you for all the things that I am unable to express here.
