Picture your child trying to learn in a classroom with no lights.
“Ridiculous,” you say. “No school would expect children to learn without lights.”
What about sound?
For more than two decades, research has established a link between noise and poor academic progress. Airplanes and auto traffic, other classrooms and children and even interior heating and cooling systems can all hinder the path of a teacher’s voice to a child’s ear.
When kids strain to filter sounds, they’re not focusing on learning. And what’s worse, research indicates that 30 to 43 percent of elementary students have minimal degrees of permanent or fluctuating hearing loss. Noisy classrooms present barriers to learning for those kids that are as real as stairs to a child who uses a wheelchair.
Noisy classrooms impede learning for many students. Children who have middle-ear infections, for whom English is a second language or who have learning disabilities can all be distracted by background noise.
And studies show that young children are inefficient listeners who don’t have the experience to fill in missing words or phrases. That’s why noisy classrooms can be as devastating to the learning process as trying to watch the teacher with the lights off.
And students aren’t the only victims of background noise. On average, teachers talk for 6.3 hours during a school day. In fact, they lose about two days per year due to vocal fatigue! “My throat is sore a great deal of the time,” says Julie Abbott, a fourth grade teacher at Wacousta Elementary in Grand Ledge.
Wacousta Elementary may have found the answer to noise interference. They’ve installed an “Easy Listener” system, which uses a microphone and speakers to amplify teachers’ voices.
And everyone benefits. “Not only can students hear better,” says Abbott, “the system helps them hear each other when the microphone is shared. What a difference it makes in everyone’s ability to hear and understand them!”
The small, wireless microphones transmit sound to a receiver system attached to speakers around the classroom. When the teacher’s voice is comfortably louder than the background noise, everyone benefits.
Students in amplified classrooms learn more faster. And teachers don’t need to repeat information as often. One local education agency that implemented sound-field classroom amplification in 60 classrooms over 5 years found nearly a 40 percent reduction in the number of students placed in programs for learning disabilities.
With the system, teachers don’t strain their voices and taxpayers save $567 million each year when teachers don’t miss class due to voice fatigue.
With so many obstacles in kids’ lives nowadays, noise shouldn’t get in the way of learning. And who needs another reason to sway good teachers away from schools that need them?
If you think noise is distracting your child’s class, suggest a sound system for the room. After all, haven’t you heard? Noise can affect learning.
Lisa Hayes is a freelance writer.