As the world goes at a faster pace and technology becomes a blur, one of the residual effects of daily life's breakneck speed is noise. Noise levels, measured in decibels, have risen as more vehicles jam America's highways, construction equipment builds high-rises on postage-stamp-sized lots, and people chat on cell phones, oblivious to their contributions to noise pollution.
While the increase in decibel levels is often more of an annoyance than a health concern, there is one place where more noise can have a detrimental effect on the learning process - in schools. More noise means louder talking by teachers and students, and sometimes results in miscommunication in the classroom. In a report by the League for The Hard of Hearing, the group said, "Studies have shown that poor classroom acoustics negatively affect learning."