Teen Gambling

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“Girls are in an environment of gambling and it [gambling] shapes the way people think about money and approach risk.”

Teenage gambling may seem like a small issue — just kids having fun — but gambling can lead to larger issues in the future. As Dr. Zeitchik noted, it changes how kids view risk and money. Gambling can also be potentially dangerous for students. If students begin to gamble online and borrow money from outside sources to cover losses, those sources are likely to be less understanding if they aren’t paid back on time. There’s also an addictive aspect. Winning a bet releases dopamine, which makes the gambler want to repeat that feeling.

One source of confusion may be that while Ramaz has taken a strong stance against gambling, the Business Investment Club may unintentionally be reinforcing the opposite message by running a fantasy stock investment contest. The contest runs each year over a five month period. The contest encourages investors to pick and trade stocks to maximize fake returns. This type of short term investing is considered similar to gambling by many financial experts. Ms. Lowry, a mathematics and economics teacher explained that “short term stocks those stocks risk so much volatility. A student learning to invest in stocks should be focusing on a broader portfolio.” The Business Investment Club’s investing competition appears to mimic the risk and feeling of gambling. When asked his opinion on why gambling is more of a problem now than in the past, Dr. Zeitchik explained that culture now encourages it more. Apps like Fanduel make it easy to bet and also bombard media with advertisements. He added that the school feels as though it can’t hide from the issue because of how ubiquitous it has become — “It’s almost like you need to gamble to fit in nowadays.”

You’ve probably heard about the Ramaz TikTok account or seen some of its viral videos on the for you page. The Ramaz GO’s TikTok account in the past few months has gained a lot of popularity, just as TikTok has risen to popularity over the past few years. Just like every TikTok user knows who Charlie D’amelio is, Ramaz teachers and students are being recognized worldwide through the social media account.

The Ramaz GO’s TikTok account is run by Shira Shasha ‘23 and Raymond Ashkenazie ‘24. Prior to this year, there had already been a TikTok account for the GO, but it wasn’t active. The purpose of the account is to “get Ramaz students more hyped, spirited, and to show the Ramaz pride”, said Shira.

Shira and Raymond come up with their viral cotent ideas by looking through TikTok and searching for trending sounds and funny trends which they can then relate back to Ramaz. But making TikTok videos isn’t as easy as it seems, a lot of effort and planning is put into creating each video. Additionally, any content that is posted on the account needs to be approved before it is posted. The students behind the account are aware that they are portraying the school with every video that they post and need to be careful with what they post because it reflects the school. They need to ensure that any video they post is appropriate.

Ramaz’s TikTok account isn’t just being viewed by Ramaz students in the US. These videos are being viewed by people in the United Kingdom and Israel as well, according to TikTok’s analytics on the videos.

But with this comes some consequences. The more people who are watching these videos, the more anti-semitism the GO’s account has been facing. There have been times where Shira and Raymond had to turn off the comments because of people floating the comment sections with pro-Palestine and anti-Israel phrases.

When they began posting on the account, the students didn’t expect their videos to get such a large response. They expected to receive at most 10,000 views and were shocked when they saw the “calling your teachers by their first names” video go viral instantly after posting it. Another video they posted featuring math teacher Mr. Letourneau took 5 days to blow up but ended up receiving over 1.2 million views.

“You may be surprised” said Mr. Letourneau, “but this is not the first time that I have gone viral.” At his previous school, Mr. Letourneau was featured in one of his student’s dancing videos which went viral and got 500,000 views. Mr. Letourneau’s advice for going viral is to “have what is known as swag”. And after seeing the success he received, Mr. Letourneau said he has been considering opening his own TikTok account where he would post math lessons.

Shira’s tip for going viral on TikTok is to use trending sounds and funny video concepts. She added that getting viewers to comment and interact with the content you post helps get the content in front of more people. Over the next few months, Shirah and Raymond hope to create a lot more videos and feature more students, events, and clubs that are taking place at Ramaz.

Many students, however, don’t agree. They see gambling as a minor issue and feel that Ramaz is wasting their time dealing with it. The Ramaz administration hopes the upcoming school assembly will get the proper message across to students on how serious the issue of gambling is, without coming down as overly harsh, thereby alienating students. There is a meeting being held on March 1st to adress this issue.

Long Live Shakespeare

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He said, “the original character was definitely humorous but there were aspects to it that I thought should have been added or points where he could have been more funny, so I tried to add a little bit of my own humor into it for sure.” An essential part of acting is when the actor interprets the character in their own way and this is what made Abe’s performance stand out. Overall, all of the actors were incredibly talented and each performance portrayed a different take on each Shakespearean work. The entire program was an absolute success and provided a unique experience for all of the students who competed.