BY WALTER CANADY III

A lot of hallway rules have been implemented this year in order to maintain safety during passing time. The most recent and maybe the most irritable one is the rule that you’re only supposed to have one earphone in during passing time. At this point the rules feel like too much. We can’t stand around the hallways to converse with friends. Now we can’t even have both headphones in. We can’t have hats or hoods on. What more could you ask of someone during passing time? Do we have to tie our shoes a certain ways too?

It just feels too much like an institution. We are in classrooms all day where ideally we are supposed to be sitting, remaining silent, and  focused. Then we go to a hallway where we are told to go straight to the next class with the exception of a bathroom break, no time for being social. It makes good sense when you think of a learning environment perhaps. On the other hand, does it make sense when you put it in the context of teenager interaction for a period of 8 hours? No, it does not. Teenagers like conversing. Teenagers like music. Teenagers are the furthest thing from robots. I understand that they are not asking us to stop listening to music altogether, but as a students it begs the question, “Do you really have to control how we do that too?”

The part about all of this is that the creators of this rule and administrators that are enforcing it are going to be mad because many students will simply ignore the policy. Senior Darion Morgan said “I feel like the rule is stupid. And really I keep my phones in anyways. Not because I am trying to intentionally disobey, just because who really thinks to remember to have one earbud in?”

Is it more productive to have a working and learning environment where someone feels comfortable and to a extent free? Or one where it is more of a institutionalized feeling, with so much need for control?