Early Cut of Senior Video Causes Outcry After Teachers Call This Year’s Graduating Class “Nothing Special”
Although far from the end of the spring, proud parents of the senior class are already getting ready to celebrate. And why shouldn’t they? The Class of 2023 has worked long and hard to get to the top of the mountain, they deserve a victory lap. One of the highlights of this celebration is the annual “senior video,” where students, parents, and teachers are interviewed about the graduating class. They tell stories about joking around at the ping pong table, bantering with the teachers in class, and of course, legendary courtyard matches. It’s always been a beautiful tribute, and more often than not a tear jerker. It serves as a bittersweet signal to the students that although their time as Collegiate students may have come to an end, their status as Dutchmen will live forever.
Everything seemed to be going great in this early preparation for May’s festivities until a rough cut of this year’s senior video was accidentally leaked, and outrage immediately followed. The controversy stemmed from the faculty segment of the video, specifically. Countless teachers from the History, English, Math, and Science departments were asked about the graduating class and their experiences teaching these smart, capable young men. These routine questions however, received anything but routine answers. When asked about the favorite moments one math teacher had with the graduating class, they responded with an unenthusiastic, “It’s all been pretty standard with those guys.” Although a little confused, the film crew didn’t think too much of the teacher’s indifference, and went along with the other interviews. They slowly realized that the math teacher’s sentiment was far from unique. Every teacher that was interviewed all had the same feelings about the Class of 2023, in the words of one of the History teachers, “They’re just really nothing special.” The film crew tried and tried to pry an ounce of emotion or even a single humorous anecdote from the faculty, but they couldn’t get anything. “We have nothing against them, they’re fine,” said one Science teacher who had taught the boys since middle school, “but they just don’t really bring anything to the table.” At this point, everyone involved in the video was shocked. How could they say such things about their students? Do they really feel no attachment at all to these boys?
Still requiring footage, the crew went downstairs to talk to the athletic department. Surely they would have some positive memories to share, right? Their hopes were immediately shattered as all the coaches sat in silence after being given the same prompts as the teachers. The silence lasted so long that the film crew even began to start packing up until one coach spoke up, “Oh yeah, there was that one year…” The coach went on to give an emotional and eloquent description of one of his JV soccer teams from a few years ago who suffered a losing streak early in the season, but later came together and ended up not only breaking .500, but topping the standings and winning the league championship! The film crew felt a huge weight lift off their shoulders as this type of story was exactly what they needed to make the video a success. This feeling of levity was short lived as another coach quickly reminded the first that the members of the team he was thinking of graduated 5 years ago. Completely fed up with the lack of cooperation from the teachers at this point, the film crew ended up quitting the project entirely.
The pressure on the administration and board to find another film crew who might be able to find something interesting about the seniors grows more intense everyday. As for the Class of 2023, we really are going to miss you, even if the teachers won’t.
Willie Nuttall