The first story I ever wrote as an honorary Barkie earned me a one-way ticket to the Principal’s office. I had uncovered the phenomenon of students snorting adderall at the Back to
School dance and let me just say, people were not happy. While the major issue with the administration was an editor’s use of an unfortunate headline for the piece, I felt the full wrath of admin and, most important, the concerned parents of Marin. “What have I started?” I remember thinking to myself. The magnitude of the upheaval from my piece made me realize just how much impact one story could have. It was then when I truly understood that journalism is a writer’s most powerful tool.
It is hard for me to be engaged in rote learning like math and science because both subjects leave no room for interpretation. In “Dead Poets Society,” Redwood alum Robin Williams said, “The human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering―these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love―these are what we stay alive for.” Writing and addressing important issues is my passion. My junior year I took AP Language and Composition and every day I would watch the class debate, whether it be the meaning of Lars Eighner’s “Dumpster Diving” or the ethics of Snowden’s whistleblowing. The room would turn into a lively fishbowl of diverse viewpoints and theories that students spread to one another and to even the teachers. It is this recurrence of new perspective that I live off.
Journalist Henry Grunwald said, “Journalism can never be silent: that is its greatest virtue and its greatest fault. It must speak, and speak immediately, while the echoes of wonder, the claims of triumph and the signs of horror are still in the air.” In Marin we live in what seems to be a perfect little bubble and I believe that as journalists it is our duty to pop it once in awhile. This is a skill at which Barkies excel. Back in 2010 we exposed the Marin police for arresting teenagers at nearly double the rate of adults, and this year we publicized that students from Marin City had to endure an extra half mile walk to school compared to their Tiburon counterparts. As journalists we have the ability to craft our words to create change in not only Redwood, but the greater community.
During my years in Bark I have learned that everyone and everything has a story―it is just a matter of finding it.
