When teachers are pulling Eagle’s Eye staffers aside to talk about a specific problem, you know something has to change.

Headphone use is prohibited when students are in the classroom even when students are individually working. If an administrator walks into a classroom and there are students using their headphones, whether they are working or not, the teacher will get in trouble. Multiple teachers have told us they wish they had the authority to decide if certain students can use headphones if it helps their productivity in the class by helping their concentration.

If you ask the student body, there is an almost unanimous response that headphones should be allowed in some form or another in the classroom. If you ask teachers, however, you can get vastly different answers. Depending on what teacher you ask you could get an outright veto on all headphones, or even a full go-ahead in an ideal world situation.

We certainly don’t speak for all teachers when we say this, and we aren’t going to call anyone out. However, each example is how actual teachers here at Akins feel. Some teachers say that if the student is doing individual work, then it shouldn’t matter whether students use earbuds or not. Others believe that students with ADD would be able to focus better if they wouldn’t get in trouble for using their headphones outside of lecture time.

For students with ADD or ADHD, it can be very difficult to work during the time given in class, because there is so much stimulus. Being able to use headphones mean being able to focus on the paper due at the end of the period, instead of Jennifer from the table over, and her most recent breakup. One student with ADHD said, “headphones can sometimes be the only thing that gives me the chance to actually focus in class, but when teachers tell me to take them out and say they ‘have no other choice’ and that ‘it’s just the rules.’ there is clearly a problem with the rule.”