Kanye West once said, “I only take advice from people younger than me, because those are the only ones with ideas these days.” Oftentimes, the older generations are stuck in their ways and their stubbornness acts as a dam to the river of progress.

I genuinely couldn’t tell you how or where I met some of my closest friends. So far, even in college, all the friends I’m making are completely by accident.

I first met basketball when I was about in fifth grade. I had just switched from a private to public school and naturally had no friends. It was recess, every kid and their mother seemed to be occupied with some football game, but a small lot with a basketball hoop captivated me-so rather than joining the football game with everyone else I went to the lot.

My biggest regret is that I’d never be able to read my finished articles for the first time, watch myself play basketball, listen to myself play piano, or see myself as a stranger would.

Every student is like a sapling, and through a proper education that sapling is turned into a might oak tree. Yet many saplings in America are thrown out into the world prematurely without receiving care of any sort, causing them to stay stagnant, wasting their potential. The latter scenario is the reality most students in impoverished areas face. Rejected by a system designed for the rich’s benefit, they’re thrown into the cold world while being miles behind their peers. This cycle continues and the potential of the sapling is lost, and the world will never see the oak tree within.One of the reasons students in the poorest school districts are denied opportunities to succeed is because education isn’t listed by the constitution as a fundamental right.

Without the power of the press, a free republic and a fascist government are one in the same. Journalism is the last check upon a tyrannical government, riling the free will of the people to stand up for their owed liberties. Yet I contest, journalistic media in the modern era has fallen grace and has failed to be competent-resulting in the people having less and less power…..