The effects of technology and a transition in our society has greatly impacted the use of lockers.
Whether students use their locker or not, they argue if lockers are a waste of time or an addition of space.
Over the course of the last few decades, lockers have become an irrelevant storage space for many students. I believe this is because they take time away from socializing between classes, and the major swing from physical paper to digital work.
Mr. Romanow, the dean of students, explains, “The Senior High has not had a ‘must-use’ locker policy since at least before I was in high school in this building.”
Most of our local schools follow a similar pattern. Although Whitesboro has a nine period block scheduling, they also allow students to use their backpacks for holding items.
Edin Hadzimujic, a sophomore at Whitesboro high school, utilizes his bag instead of a locker for storage.
“I am able to bring whatever I need with me from class to class without making the journey to my locker. It is a convenient way to keep all my folders and school supplies,” states Edin.
Most of the homework given out utilizes the textbooks we get at the beginning of each semester when you start a new class. These textbooks are almost never utilized in class, but if so there are always extras that can be found in the classroom which leaves students with the ease of not needing to carry those paper bricks.
Additionally, the extensive use of chromebooks allows students to carry the slim fit chromebooks that are issued by our school instead of carrying lots of papers, notebooks, and packets. This is because most work is through google classroom, google docs, and gmail.
So is it better to use a locker? I don’t believe so.
Mr. Romanow notices, “that bags cause some congestion in classrooms, but students have a much better chance at being prepared for class since they’re carrying all of their materials all the time.”
He also describes that there is a “change in how much students walk through the hallways before school and between classes. Before [the] Covid [pandemic], there was much less active traffic in the hallways before school. Instead, students tended to hang out with their friend groups at a specific location.”
Now students travel around with all their school supplies and spend more time with people instead of wasting time stuck struggling with the much dreaded combination lock.
Although lockers can be a valuable space to hold work or winter gear, I have not needed to use mine once in the last two years in our school. But the availability of them is definitely something worth keeping as students never know what their future classes contain.
With change happening all around us, the impacts of a technological age and altering society are greatly influencing the use of lockers. As seen, students tend to utilize their bags much more leaving the hallways busy, but lockers empty.
