Week 7 Story: How People First Learned to Study

Long ago, there were these students at OU who never knew how to study, or what studying even was for that matter. The only way to pass a test or a class was to pay attention in class. A particular group of students (two brothers and two sisters) hardly paid attention in class, and therefore failed all of their tests. Eventually, getting tired of seeing terrible grades on their assignments, these four students decided to switch universities and go to the University of Texas in Austin. After only two days there, the students realized that was not their home. Despite their terrible grades, OU was always more fun and they all fit in at OU. So, they came back. 

Their grades did not improve, but they had a new tactic in mind. The next time they failed a test, they blamed it on the group or organization that they hung out with last. They said it was their fault they were distracted in class and therefore they should fail the next test. 

First, the group blamed it on the engineering students since they had gone to the Engineers club meeting the previous night. They told them all their grades would be transferred to them. The engineering students tried extra hard to pass their next test, but ended up failing due to the amount of stress put on them. They, in turn, blamed the law students, as they had all met up for dinner the night before. The law students were told that all the bad grades would be transferred to them now.

On their way home the night before the next test, the law students got in a minor car accident. Someone from the International Studies department had hit their car as they were looking at their phone while driving. The law students ended up failing their test, and then told the international studies students that all of the grades would be transferred to them. 

The International Studies students were quite worried and tried paying extra attention in class in order to pass. They held the burden of three other groups of students, so naturally, they were under a lot of stress. They ended up failing their test as well. However, they remembered that on the previous day, one of the students in the Philosophy department bumped into a student from the International Studies department during lunchtime. The international studies students blamed the philosophy students and told them all of their grades would be passed on to them. 

The philosophy students, being very wise and thoughtful, had a meeting to decide what best way to get a good score on their next test. They ended up with a few solutions, but ended up choosing one: they were going to review the material that the professor went over in class, but at home. They were going to quiz one another to see if the others knew what the material was about. They ended up passing their test with flying colors! One by one, they taught all the groups on campus how to review material at home after it has already been stated in class. They helped everyone pass their next test and eventually everybody had good grades on their reports. When students nowadays think of this process, they call it "studying" and it is something college students have to do everyday in order to stay on top of things.

Source: An accurate description of today's "studying." :-)

Bibliography: West African Folktales Unit; How Mushrooms First Grew. 

Author's Note:

This story was inspired by the West African Folktales Unit, namely the story How Mushrooms First Grew. In the story, two brothers were in a lot of debt, so they became robbers. Then, they were embarrassed and guilty of their evil deeds, and went back to building a farm. However, a bushfowl came along and ate all the crops, thus ruining their harvests. The brothers caught the bushfowl and transferred all their debts to the bushfowl. The bushfowl decided to lay eggs and sell them to gain money and repay debts, but a hurricane swept a branch off of the tree where the eggs lay, therefore destroying the eggs. The bushfowl now blamed the tree and transferred all debts to it. This went on and throughout the story, an elephant, hunter, tree-stump, and ants got blamed. Finally, the ants held a council to figure out the best way to repay all the debts. They decided to weave pure linen thread and sell it to make profits. They spread out the linen in the ground and as it got sunlight, they grew into what we now call mushrooms. I changed the story by placing it in a more modern setting, such as OU. I had four students start off the debt with bad grades, and pass it on until it got to the philosophy students, who represented the ants and figured out a way to get back on track. Hope you all liked the story :)