By Dan Soslowsky:
Academic history was made on April 29th when US History teacher Mr. Ryan Kentwood broke up the class into groups of four and introduced a new project that would be weighted as a majority of the students’ grades. Each group was assigned the task of creating a 20-slide presentation on constitutional amendments-- a project that would be significantly difficult to do alone, but relatively simple if split up evenly between four individuals. When the group projects were turned in only 6 days later, the results were staggering.
Soon into grading the projects it became increasingly evident that, to Mr. Kentwood’s surprise, all of the members of a certain group had, in fact, contributed equally to the project. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Mr. Kentwood reported in a state of absolute stupor, “I’ve worked at this school for over 20 years, and I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Fortunately, our journalists were able to get in touch with the students-- Jake Wellington, Abby Palmer, Sarah Harper, and Liam Miller-- to conduct exclusive interviews with each of them to truly assess the thoughts and actions that led to this historical occurrence.
“Well, yaknow, I just sorta figured it was the right thing to do,” said Wellington, “Why would I make the conscious decision to hurt my fellow group members? It was the least I could do. I know that, personally, I would be really pissed if my group members did me dirty like that.”
“Yeah, I mean, the groups were assigned,” added Palmer, “We didn’t choose to be in a group with each other, so I’m not just gonna leave them hangin’ with a slacker they didn’t even ask for. We all took 5 of the 20 slides to work on and then just went on with our lives. It’s easier for all of us that way.”
“Yaknow, I’ve just heard too many horror stories of group members having to miserably do all the work last minute because the other members didn’t do their part,” grieved Harper, “Take my friend Nate, for example. He was in a group for AP Chem last month and ended up having to re-invent the chemical element Boron early in the morning in his bedroom before leaving for school.”
“I just hope we can be looked upon as an example for future generations of students,” said Miller, “if my actions this week have inspired even just one kid out there, then my duty-- both as a high school student, and as an American-- has been served.”