Why No Headphones Allowed In The Hallways

Matt Grobelch

This year students discovered they can no longer listen to headphones in the hallways. Well on September 10, 2009, in an interview, Samuel Russ, the school principal, was asked the solution as to why no headphones are allowed in the hallways.

His response was that, "In the hallway, it is time to socialize and not to listen to music and that you should be socializing and connecting with the other students.It can show respect to your fellow classmates and teachers so that if someone wants to talk to you, they feel that you are ready to listen." So if you have headphones in your ears, it shows that you do not want to communicate with the other students. It is kind of disrespectful to others and saying that you do not want to talk or communicate with them. Also, it is hard to talk to someone who does not seem to be listening to you.

The second thing Russ talked about was hearing. He said if a person is listening to music in the hallways had dropped a paper then another student or teacher could not be able to tell them because that person is not listening. If a person is listening and has headphones in their ears, they have a tendency to play their music so loud that it could potentially damage their ears. If a student is listening to headphones in the hallways they can not hear any announcements that are going over the intercom. If their name is called the student would have no clue that they are being spoken to.

The final thing that Russ talked about was safety. He said that if students are listening to their headphones, then they can not hear what is going on in the halls. So if a fire were to happen you would not be able to hear the alarms going off. If you are listening to your headphones then you start to play your music too loud and can affect your hearing. Especially in the hallways there are students and teachers talking and lockers opening and closing which makes it harder to hear the headphones which means you must turn the headphones which you must turn the volume up more and hurt your ears more. If a janitor is coming down down the hallways with a machine and students need to clear a path so he can get through and you will not have headphones going, you will not know that he is coming and you could get hit or run over.