Students, Staff Need to Respect Daily Video Announcements

Announcements, like teachers’ lectures, are nearly unbeatable when it comes to flying efficiently and uselessly into one ear and out the other. For the first five minutes of class that the announcements play, teachers are grading, students are chatting or doing homework and hardly anyone is listening. As for those who actually want to hear the announcements, straining to hear over chatter is extremely difficult.

The announcement team needs to try and combat this problem because the pithy announcements play a subtle but highly important role in life at the school. The system is one of the only ways by which school-wide information can be conveyed, and with no one listening to announcements, communication of the information within the school becomes inconsistent and ineffective.

For the people who want to listen to the announcements and know what’s happening at the school, being unable to hear over the loud buzz of bustling and chattering is frustrating.

“Students should at least let people who want to hear the announcements to listen,” senior Mikhail Tikhonov said. “Even if you don’t want to listen, you still shouldn’t interfere.”

This lack of interest among students and teachers is the result of technological difficulties and indifference towards the reported news.

The aesthetic aspect of the announcements contributes to this. Seeing and hearing the same faces and monotone drone day after day causes student interest to dissipate quickly.

“If [the announcers are] just going to read I don’t really want to listen,” junior Trevor Cape said. “They should be more engaging. Also, a lot of the time it’s hard to rely on the announcements because of technical difficulties.”

As a result, students and teachers both ignore the announcements carelessly. Easily bored, students often neglect the announcements, seeing them as “dull.” Even some teachers disregard the announcements, letting their students talk over the broadcasts or sometimes even neglecting to show them to their students.

Because students need to be up-to-date on the events at the school that affect them every day, this is a liability

“The announcements are very valuable,” Spanish teacher Kim Hanley said. “I tell my students to listen … people should pay attention to them, since they update students on events that they or their friends need to know, how to get involved with the school, where to meet for club meetings and so on. They’re important.”

Obviously, more needs to be done to make the announcements an integral part of the school life. A decrease in the technical difficulties and enthusiasm in relaying the announcements are a few possible characteristics that the announcements team should strive for, which would make the daily broadcasts more attractive and successful. Students and teachers feel obligated to listen to the announcements, as the announcements are made for their convenience. Disrespect toward the announcements not only is rude to those who produce them, but it results in lack of awareness concerning the significant events that affect students and teachers every day when they’re in the school.

The announcements provide one of the only major ways by which the administration and most student groups can communicate to the entire student body.

Both the announcers and their audience need to do more to ensure that students and teachers listen during second period, so that no one is snoring away while important broadcasts are being made.