All Schreiber students are familiar with the paradox of the morning announcements. Every morning, they are delivered, and every morning, very few people take the time to stay quiet and pay attention while they’re going on. This is truly a shame, as tuning in to the morning announcements would allow people to be more aware of school happenings. Be it about any clubs or school events or any awards, there is a wide variety of important things to say in the announcements yet they simply goes unheeded and ignored.

One simple solution to the conundrum would be to provide a printout of all the announcements each morning and to hang it outside of the main office in addition to the verbal announcement in the morning. This would allow those who showed any interest to seek it out and read it while allowing those who are indifferent to simply ignore it. Although this solution would use a sheet of paper per day, it would be extremely convenient, and a single piece of paper is nothing compared to the amount of paper consumed at Schreiber on a daily basis. Furthermore, anyone could take a photo of this paper in order to read it later.

Another potential solution be to simply enforce silence during the announcements, which would probably take more effort on the part of the teachers. This would be quite a challenge, as some students refuse to listen to teachers just as much as the announcements. Some simply the first few minutes of second period to be a social time, and they would likely be resistant to any attempts to infringe upon that time.

As it currently stands, the morning announcements are a system with its flaws, and reform is urgently needed. It is clear that having a printout would be an simple, feasible solution. Not only would a printout make the announcements accessible throughout the day, but it would also eliminate misunderstandings from not being able to hear or not paying attention.