When you stop and take a look around you, what is the main thing you notice? Technology. Whether this be computers, phones, televisions, etc. It’s surrounding our world. Changes like this can be scary, I’ll admit it. But the one timeless piece of machinery that always preserves the natural beauty we live in is the camera.

Everyone has their own set routines. You may wake up, go to the bathroom, brush your teeth, then wash your face. Or you may wake up, go to the bathroom, brush your teeth, then spend fifteen minutes doing your ten step skincare routine. Everyone does what they think is right for their skin. But are they really doing what’s best?

We’re approaching four years since the beginning of Covid-19, the global pandemic of 2020. For those of you who either don’t remember or blocked it out, it was the part of our lives where we collectively picked up hobbies and impulsively cut our hair. To the seniors reading this, we went through our first high school experiences virtually. We involuntarily traded walking the halls to rolling out of bed five minutes before class, and logging onto a Zoom call where your camera stayed off the entire time. It was a time when TikTok thrived, the news never got turned off, and we heard the phrase “unprecedented times” enough to make us roll with every punch. We’ve survived this long, but what are the impacts since then?

Ballet dancers appear so effortless as they pirouette across the stage with their graceful yet sharp movements, but the reality is so far from that. Despite the way they appear to be dancing with ease as you sit and watch from the audience, those dancers are using just about every single muscle in their bodies to keep their legs straight, their toes pointed, making sure that every movement is controlled, sharp, pretty, and graceful. Dancing on your toes while they’re trapped in a little wooden box decorated in pretty pink fabric makes it even harder to get all of those intricate moves perfect.

Education looks different to everyone; even school itself looks different to everyone. Your experiences are based on what you choose to do, who do it with, and where. While the first day of school to many may look like walking into a stuffy beige building with hallways compressing hundreds or even thousands of students every passing period, or cramming into an obnoxiously loud cafeteria, to others it may look like waking up, getting ready, helping your parents with chores, and sitting at the kitchen table with your mom and siblings while the smell of breakfast and freshly printed papers wafts through the air.

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, Tweenager: “a young person between the ages of approximately eight and twelve.” A collective jumble of years, that for most were filled with awkward conversations, the end of elementary school, and balancing on a constant tightrope of still receiving a kids menu while switching from Disney Channel to the CW.

In every single sector of education, economics matters. They matter in the resources, opportunities, and classes that are offered at any school. Schools with a bigger budget are able to afford their students with more experiences that leave their classes better off. Going to a college prep-school can set you up with more college connections, standardized test preparation, and more one on one time with teachers. This is why it comes as no shock that when Think Impact did a report on scholarship statistics they found that 10% of private school students are awarded scholarships, while only 3% of public school students win scholarships. Scholarships can be earned through various different achievements, 25% of scholarships require testing scores, and each year the number is decreasing. This is good. Standardized testing requirements are an arbitrary way to measure student success because the preparation some receive is unfair to the majority of students left in the dark.

If you’re anything like me, you probably spent a considerable portion of your childhood fervently begging for one of those esteemed Justice notebooks. Nothing matched to the allure of the pink, fuzzy ones covered with squishy, glittery initials on the front. Mine was proudly embellished with the letter “E” and, like most of my treasures, spent most of its life beneath the veil of my twin bed. Its existence was marked by a handful of entries, random doodles, and fleeting thoughts before fate led it to a dusty box in the confines of the attic.

I’m not sure if it’s my fried dopamine receptors talking, but I love to scroll. Instagram, in particular. I could spend hours looking through my followers, and I do! Just don’t look at my screen time. However, as my senior class dwindles out of high school for the final time, there is nothing I cannot wait to do more than to Social Media Purge. Throughout my years growing up on the ever so changing and conscious internet (thanks ChatGPT), I’ve gained a somewhat new outlook on the content I consume. I decided that once I walk out of the school doors forever and into college, I will leave my not-close IRL Instagram followers and Snapchat friends behind. Because in all honesty, was I really going to stay in touch with them in the first place? I like to do a clean sweep every couple of months of people I no longer talk to in person, or am friends with. I don’t understand the importance of keeping someone who you don’t converse with in real life outside of your phone, on your phone.

My whole life I thought I was a weirdo. I thought I was stupid for misunderstanding something everyone else thought was “so simple.” People thought I was awkward because they didn’t understand when I tried to explain something. Then I realized that I have ADHD, this doesn’t make people’s perception of me change or change how I feel about it, but it gives me solace to know I’m not alone.

Jenks High School has facilitated education since 1907. Recently, the Common Core K-12 student curriculum has dominated almost every state. With recent discoveries in school and learning environments, multiple states have developed new school standards and withdrew from the Common Core, including Oklahoma, which runs under the Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE) that develops frameworks for required courses like mathematics, sciences, fine arts, english and social studies.