The students sit in their AP US Government class, trying to take a test on Federalism.
No one makes a sound, aside from the quiet scratching of pencils on Scantrons. Then, a voice booms from the class next door. It’s another AP Government teacher, lecturing on the same topic as the one the students are being tested on. And the students can hear every word.
The trailer park known as Sparta is arranged in blocks of four, usually organized by the subject of the class. For instance, the Calculus teachers are all arranged together in the T-311 block of trailers and the AP Government teachers are all in the T-305 block of trailers, and so on.
This, combined with the fact that the walls in the trailers are practically paper-thin, enables students to easily hear what goes on in the class next door.
Sometimes, this is the welcome sound (at least for the students) of the answers to your test while you take it but just as often, this can result in problems. For instance, Dr. Jennifer Beach’s AP English Literature class is right next to the classroom for Film Study. Just imagine how hard it is to focus on your timed writing when you can hear the sounds of classic movies right next door.
Another block of trailers suffering from the overly thin walls is the T-314 block: World Languages. The AP German classroom can easily hear Spanish come through the walls, turning that entire block of trailers into a one-story Tower of Babel.
We could easily solve this cacophonus problem if we really wanted to. Maybe the administrators should split up the rooms differently and make it so that no classes of the same subject are right next to each other.
They could move classes like Film Study into the building so that they can continue to study films, only this time in an environment where the walls are thicker and less likely to cause a distraction to the class next door. Maybe the teachers could try covering the cracks under their doors to the neighboring trailers to block out the sound.
If the administration is going to make focusing on your test over the sounds of the room next door this difficult, perhaps the least they could do is provide earplugs.