Strassburger: Aspen High Schools’ cell-phone policy is acoustical perfume

Coming off of Aspen High School’s Experiential Education (Ex Ed) week, staff and students alike celebrated the amazing experiences they had and the new relationships they created. A hallmark of Ex Ed is that it has been cell-phone free for the past few years, so I know that I look forward to being unplugged for five days while I am out on the river, and students, too, agree that an unplugged week is actually a nice change of pace. This year our unplugged Ex Ed week took on a more meaningful tone as we had just kicked off our cell phone free school year. Many of us are of that age where we can imagine a life without cell phones: We went through high school and college without a computer; traveled through Europe, drove cross country, and lived in cities, all without a cell phone. While we can fathom a cell-phone free existence, and understand the joys that came with that existence, our students cannot imagine this world where we met at the water shack at the top of Ajax and, depending on the amount of powder, might or might not have waited for 5-10 minutes. We left voicemails on home answering machines, talked to strangers, and did not have the luxury of feigning connection or looking busy while scrolling. Obviously, the world has changed, and I know that I can scroll through Instagram for far too long, shop online with the one click option, and I much prefer texting to calling, all while realizing the countless hours I waste on my phone.

Cell phones have many incredible benefits (safety comes to my mind first and foremost), but I have also been witness to an increasingly disconnected study body at Aspen High School. Whole tables of students merely stared at their phones rather then laughing and talking in the commons; assemblies were low energy as students sat on their phones instead of cheering for their peers; and far too many students checked out of active learning and listening by putting in a single (and thus hidden) AirPod to listen to music all day long; and even more students spent energy sneaking snapchats and texts throughout their classes.

This year the difference is palpable: the decibel level in the commons and in the halls is decidedly louder than prior years; students play games at lunch and there is laughter and loud conversations; our welcome back assembly was the most spirited I have seen in years; and we do not have hordes of students wandering the halls on their phones or listening to music. Multiple students have said: “Strass, low key, the cell-phone thing is not that bad,” which is high praise coming from teenagers who have never known life without a cell phone.

Now, some people might question a school leader who enjoys an increase in volume in the halls and common spaces, but it is the noise that we didn’t even really know we were missing. It turns out that those who wrote the original charter for Aspen High School in 1966 understood a lot about our future needs: those visionaries actually highlighted that they wanted the halls filled with “acoustical perfume,” which they defined as no bells and quiet background music, but I would venture that the sounds of students talking, laughing, even shrieking, would be considered far preferable to the muffled silence that cell phones created. A cell-phone free school is acoustical perfume to my very ears. 

Sarah Strassburger is the principal of Aspen High School.