Whitney Young is no longer just a high school where academic excellence is the standard. Seemingly overnight, the hallways and classrooms have evolved into a casino floor where basic Blackjack strategy has been added to the top of Young’s vast repertoire of curricula. As Whitney Young students continued to transfer hundreds of dollars daily between each other gambling, Whitney Young had been growing jealous that none of that money was finding its way to the school’s coffers.
In a unanimous decision by the Local School Council last week, it was announced that Whitney Young will be installing seven-seat, casino-grade blackjack tables in all four of the schools’ houses, the library, and even in some classrooms. The Young administration said in a statement last Tuesday that they are exhilarated to provide students with real-world experiences and act to spearhead the movement to increase financial literacy education in school.
With developing a casino standing at a hefty $80,000 in estimated budget, not everyone in the Friends of Whitney Young community is on board with the decision. Administration predicts the project will become profitable in six years, but some parents just aren’t ok with their children gambling. “I send my children to high school so they can get an education,” said Karen Mellman-Smith, mother to Benjamin (Sr.) and Danielle (So.) Smith. “They didn’t enroll at a school like Whitney Young so they could gamble their lives away.”
Although some have voiced concerns about irresponsible gambling, the Young administration reassured in the same statement Tuesday that the maximum amount a student can lose per school year will be limited to the cost of their student fees for that school year.
Traditional-minded teachers and parents may raise their eyebrows at the idea of using gambling as a teaching tool, but proponents of the project argue that this hands-on approach will revolutionize math teaching. “I think this is an entirely new era of mathematics as we know it.” said Jack Bender, Whitney Young’s LSC student body representative and one of the community stakeholders who cast a vote as part of the unanimous decision. “Can you think of a high school math class as interactive as this?” The LSC has also won over the support of almost the entire student body as well. “I’ve never been this excited about anything,” says senior and son of Mellman-Smith Benjamin Smith. “I am finally able to do math that I can actually use in real life.”
As Whitney Young redraws the lines of what should and shouldn’t be taught in school, the debate on the integration of gambling in learning is still a highly contested topic. While some parents express concern about the dangers of teaching children to gamble, others see it as a revolutionary style of teaching that will effectively teach financial literacy and life skills no other curriculum is able to teach. But whether or not parents agree on it, Whitney Young’s decision solidifies the school’s appearance as an institution that is always willing to transcend the boundaries of a traditional classroom. Will this gamble pay off? Only time will tell.
