On January 25th, our school’s We The People team won the state competition for New Jersey, which is one of the most competitive in the country. As a result, we will move on to the National competition in Washington DC in late April.
Let me start of by explaining how the class works. For the first few months of the year, we got an overview of the whole curriculum. That process culminated with us being broken up into the six units based on our expertise. From that point until just before the competition, both classes prepared with groups of 4-6 students. With that group, we participated in several practice mock legislative meetings to simulate the competition environment. About a week or so before the actual competition, Mr. Uplinger decided which six students from each unit out of both classes would compete at the State competition at Rutgers, which we went on to win, handing the team from East Brunswick their 2nd loss in 30 years.

Gallery • 2 Photos

Mr. Uplinger's reaction to the announcement of our victory

To talk about the class itself, taking We The People has been perhaps one of the most rewarding decisions of my entire life. As someone who has just passed into legal voting age and is very interested in the American political system, and how it works, I have thoroughly enjoyed every minute of sitting in Mr. Uplinger’s classroom as a constitutional scholar. Mr. Uplinger displays his passion for and vast knowledge of the US Constitution every day, and it certainly passes on to his students.

Mr. Uplinger has been teaching We The People on top of his US History classes for 10 years now, and this is not only his first trip to Washington with a class, but his fist time coming in first place with a class. We were quite obviously very proud and excited for ourselves when our name was read out as the winner, but above all, we were happy for Mr. Uplinger, who after a decade, has finally achieved this goal. I think that I am speaking on behalf of every student who has ever taken We The People, but Mr. Uplinger has undoubtedly inspired us to become better students and people. But, above all, he has inspired us to be better American citizens, which he always says is his ultimate goal as a teacher.