As high schoolers we prioritize the five or six core academic subjects. The moment we enter ninth grade, it’s as if the focus of school shifts from learning how to write an essay or new organizational skills to earning sufficient grades in each class in order to support and boost one’s college application. At Fieldston, and in the real world, such a high value is given to achievement. Score perfectly on a test, get A’s in class, attend an Ivy League university; these things tend to monopolize the reference frame of most new high schoolers as they enter this four year stage of their lives. And honestly, they dominated my viewpoint for a lot of time in high school. Even when I joined the Fieldston News as a sophomore during the first weeks of the COVID pandemic, the idea of being a newspaper writer on my college application sat in the very back of my mind.
I’ve learned a lot from The Fieldston News. I gained new technological skills while I was an Online Editor; all sorts of things concerned with making an article appear nice, uploading music and podcasts and photographs to the website, and other things. As a writer I’ve learned the importance of simply telling the story, reporting the details, facts and perspectives involved in a situation without imposing your own beliefs. And as an editor, I’ve practiced identifying misplaced commas, reworking sections of papers that are repetitive, and I have even gotten a glimpse at how the physical copy of the newspaper is produced.
Everything listed above is part of the world of Journalism. There is the writing, the editing, the distribution and design to make articles look pretty. However, my biggest takeaway from The Fieldston News, and the most valuable lesson I’ve learned, has nothing to do with producing a good newspaper. It has to do with producing strong connections between people. This, I’ve learned, is the real meaning of journalism and The Fieldston News, and by extension the real meaning of high school. It is to build relationships with people, to connect with them through a common interest, through a shared project or effort, or through reading an article that a classmate has read, and taking in what their writing has to offer.
Connection, collaboration and teamwork are riddled throughout the process that The Fieldston News team follows when producing the newspaper. During the biweekly Tuesday meetings during activities, we assign articles. Each member of the staff – writers, editors, columnists – are all gathered as the editors-in-chief list the article ideas to the group, and writers volunteer themselves accordingly, keeping in mind their writing interests, strengths and tendencies. Once articles are written, editors clean up any grammatical mistakes and leave other suggestions for the writers to implement if they choose to. Collaboration between writers and editors results in a clump of about ten to twenty high quality articles, now ready to be posted on the website, laid out in an online design app and printed as a newspaper. The layout editor must communicate with the editors, and editors must be in communication with Mr. Smith, Mr. Rubenson and Mr. Montera, to ensure that the editing and printing are both smooth and on time. Finally, when the paper is fully printed, the chain of communication and collaboration has only just begun, as 500+ members of the Fieldston community can now interact with the thoughts, ideas and artwork of our Fieldston News team, and the cycle of connecting with people starts once again.
While I was listening to the various speakers during graduation, my classmates, Mary T. Bassett, and Principal Marro, I realized the power of connection, and of community. I realized that high school is about branching out, expanding as a person, reaching one’s arms to make new bonds and learn new things. I am infinitely grateful for The Fieldston News for teaching me about myself, teaching me about connections, and giving me those connections, to new people, to interesting articles and to different facets of life. If The Fieldston News is nothing else, it is a bridge to the world around you.
Editor-in-Chief Emeritus,
Andrew Ross
Very well put 👏