Can You Hear the Tyrants?

There have recently been a lot of changes to policies within the school since last year. The students have been given chromebooks, we’re now expected to wear our IDs to school everyday and it feels as if security is basically taking headphones just for fun. Just the second week of school, there were a number of kids receiving detentions for just having them on their person and I know from personal experience that every child that had detention that week had it for a single resounding reason: Headphones.

My headphones got confiscated on the third day of school and when I went to security to get them back at the end of the day I was told I couldn’t get them back until I served a detention. But the third day of school was on a Friday, and there are no late busses after school on Mondays, so I had to wait 5 whole days and an hour of detention to be reunited with my beloved earbuds just because they were hanging out of my sweatshirt.

I understand why headphones are not allowed in school while class is in session, but there’s no harm in using them during the 5 minutes you’re given in passing to get to class. You’re not causing disruption in the hallways, you’re not hindering your learning, and you’re not making your own or someone’s journey to class hazardous, so why is even just plain visibility treated as such a serious offense?

There was allegedly an announcement made about the new headphone policy that morning, but due to my somewhat rambunctious first period class, I was unaware of said announcement, and was awarded a rude informant of the new rule. However, I was not even using my headphones, they were just hanging out of my sweatshirt pocket, that’s not even a distraction.

This could have also been the case for many students because the morning announcements are generally made in the last 5 minutes of first period when teachers usually cease their lessons for the day (for that period of course) and leave the students chat amongst themselves. And when there is a class with a minimum of 20 adolescents (possibly more), and they’re all engaged in speaking at the same time, the clashing of conversations causes the noise level to rise, making it extremely difficult and virtually impossible to listen to the entirety of the morning and afternoon announcements. So just like that, without warning, headphones were being confiscated left and right.While this policy is ridiculous, I refuse to wait another 5 days for the return of my headphones and have had them stored ever since. I recommend all students do the same until the tyranny ends.