If Just One Person--A Paragraph a Day

I had a very negative experience today, unfortunately.  We had a pep rally at the high school where I teach, and because of rain they had to move it indoors to the gym.  In all their wisdom, the people in charge decided to still have the yelling contest between the classes, even though we were indoors.  They even had a monitor with which they could measure the intensity of the noise in decibels.  Several of us teachers were a bit appalled at the idea, because we know what kind of damage high levels of noise can cause, especially in an enclosed space, but really no one wanted to hear from us--after all, sometimes looking out for the welfare of young people interferes with things like school spirit, and we couldn't have that.  In short, over the next 45 minutes or so, at least five students came literally stumbling out of the gym, their hands over their ears.  One girl was in tears.  They measured the highest decibel level at 118, and the CDC says that at 120 decibels, permanent hearing loss can occur almost instantly.  In my mind, if even one student loses any hearing at all due to a silly contest to see which group of people can yell loudest, then a huge disservice has been done.  It was frustrating to watch young people being subjected to a potentially dangerous situation just because it happens to be homecoming week and no one tried to come up with alternate activities that wouldn't have been nearly as dangerous.  But this is our world, isn't it?  So many decisions are made for the sake of making things easier for everyone, and the decision to have 800 kids yelling as loudly as they could indoors was not a good one, but it was one that I could do absolutely nothing about.  If one kid's hearing was damaged today, then the whole thing simply wasn't worth it.