Most people don’t know, but The Rider Online is a nationally recognized newspaper. We have won, for the third year in a row, a Crown (an award from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association) and are nominated for a Pacemaker (from the National Scholastic Press Association). From the outside, we seem like an extremely prestigious and disciplined program. Truthfully though, it’s nothing like it seems.

Now, that’s not to say that we don’t have great leadership or direction. Our adviser, Mallett, is an amazing teacher with an enormous amount of passion for the program. Along with Mallett, our editors give us assistance and encouragement in any way necessary. But at the end of the day, Newspaper is a self-led class. We are given the basics and then allowed to run free. We’re given the freedom to write what we want how we want without being micromanaged. Although all staffers love said freedom, it can often lead to mass chaos.

Our class is an odd mixture of work and play. Although we all love to write and enjoy what we do, we’re all extremely close and also enjoy talking. We attempt to balance the two as best we can, but it normally ends up in a large amount of procrastination and last minute writing. Depending on what time of the week it is, how much work getting done varies.

If any given person walks into our class on a Monday, they’ll see us in our Monday meeting. At the beginning of every week we meet for the majority of the class to discuss stories for the week and our features for the six weeks grading period. Monday is one of the two more structured days in Newspaper. Tuesday, sometimes known as ‘Taco Tuesday’, is spent doing an extreme amount of nothing. We sit around and talk about everything under the pretense of writing questions for interviews or getting help for our stories. Although Wednesday tends to be a tad more productive than Tuesday, it still consists of a large amount of procrastination. Thursday, known as ‘Silent Thursday’, is the day where we get the majority of our work done. The lights are turned off and talking is not allowed. Friday is designated for last minute writing, but more importantly, sitting around and talking before the weekend begins.

I love our perfect blend of professionalism and chaos. It fits us perfectly. We do everything necessary to be great, while enjoying the process. We never forget that at the end of the day we’re a family, and in the middle of all of the craziness we can still be great.