The education of our children is essential in all modern societies. Most established education occurs in a classroom setting and learning commonly involves intensive speech communication between a teacher and the students as well as among students. The effectiveness of this educational environment relies heavily on the acoustical conditions of the classroom. That is, the acoustics of a classroom greatly affects learning. Poor classroom acoustics hamper the ability to learn while good classroom acoustics facilitates the learning process. However, the addition of an acoustic ceiling in a school is not as simple as merely calling a contractor.
Though the cost of achieving excellent classroom acoustics is a small fraction of cost compared to other types of construction, funding for our schools is often limited. Even though the benefits of acoustic ceilings in classrooms outweigh the costs, very little has been done to equip our schools with such ceilings. Let’s examine who will benefit most from acoustic ceilings in the classroom.
First of all, good acoustics means good speech intelligibility, and this helps all students. But those students who suffer any type of hearing loss would benefit the most. Very young children who are still developing language skills stand to benefit greatly from acoustic ceilings as well as those students who are learning a new language. Acoustic ceilings will also benefit students who suffer from attention deficit problems.
To hear more clearly is to learn more effectively. Merely having teachers talk louder or moving students closer to the front of the class is ineffective. What our Los Angeles schools, and students, need are more acoustic ceilings in the classroom.
