School portraits / Student voices in 2024 and 2026
Ramaz, even the announcement gets a review
Teach teenagers to make an argument and eventually they will make one about the assignment.
At Ramaz Upper School in Manhattan, even the noise before an announcement had attracted a review. In her November 2024 satire column for the student newspaper, The Rampage, Gianna Goldfarb compared the new chime to an airport announcement. The school had acquired a sound. The sound had acquired a critic.
Adults put enormous effort into deciding what teenagers should notice. Teenagers reserve the right to notice something else. You can have a whole program planned. They may have preliminary remarks about the noise that introduces it.
Noa Essner had a larger complaint than the chime. Writing in November 2024, she remembered three days discussing her summer book before an essay and the next book. If discussion was going to be that brief, she wanted assignments that would at least broaden what students knew of literature and the world.
Sara Kleinhaus wanted something rather practical for her encounter with Things Fall Apart: more help understanding its historical setting. She thought she could have appreciated the novel in class. Left to read it alone over the summer, she had struggled.
Neither suggestion amounted to abolishing reading and returning to the pool. They were arguments about what the work should accomplish. Teach a student to examine an argument, and eventually the assignment itself will come under examination.
Even adding adults can produce two entirely reasonable answers. When Ramaz divided student activities responsibilities among staff in August 2026, the student government president worried about having more people to consult to get a change made. Club leader Gabi Flatto-Katz welcomed the prospect of someone concentrating on clubs and making arrangements clearer.
More help, or more people to ask for help? Both are reasonable readings of the same announcement. Any parent who has tried to find the right adult for a school question will recognize the distinction.
The adults may be preparing an announcement. There is always a chance the room has already formed an opinion about the introductory noise.