As students cavort, gambol, or plod through the hallways, sometimes they do so with an effete stride, and sometimes derring-do burgeons on their countenances after a great fait accompli in the classroom. Of course there is always a little raillery and persiflage, and also the occasional lachrymose high school break up – all expected among the hoi polloi of a high school hallway.

It is when the noisome folderol turns the halls into a morass of ineffable nihilism that we must remember the importance of etiquette.  Which… brings me to the subject of my next editorial – ear buds in the hallways.

“Take the buds out of your ears and say hello to me.”

I really feel like saying this to students when we pass each other in the hallway, but then again, I am not really sure if they would even hear me. So instead I just keep walking, as do they, and the moment of social interaction, or at least salutation is lost. Big deal, right? Well, this one little moment in the hallway might not be a big deal unto itself, but what about when that moment is multiplied at least tenfold throughout the day… each day.

I distinctly remember having dinner at Olive Garden a few months ago. At the next table over there was a family with two teenage children. They were out at a restaurant having a family meal together and the kids… yep, you guessed it, had their i-phones on the table and ear buds in their ears. Oftentimes I will walk through a grocery store or any retail store for that matter and see multiple people walking around with those ear buds fully intact. Ok, I get it – really, I do. I know that its 2012 and technology exists for the better. I know that listening to music helps us relax, and I know that a lot of the music people listen to contains great messages and meanings.  But I also know  that there is a world around us, and there are real, live people around us, and when we are in the presence of that environment there is a lot to learn and a lot to gain from being in tune less with music and more with your surroundings.  I admit, I had the Jerome Shostak vocab book in front of me when I wrote the first two paragraphs of this column, but we do learn a lot of commonly used words, sayings, thoughts, and communicative insights just by listening to people around us and being, well, aware of our surroundings.

In the 1800s the Transcendentalists such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau wrote and philosophized about the importance of connecting with the natural world, trusting oneself and one’s intuitions, and avoiding reliance on machines and societal constructions to guide our daily lives.  I am an English teacher so I feel obligated to make these literary connections in pretty much every column I write, but aside from that I really do have to say that these Transcendentalists that often seem to be nothing more than precursors to hippies and tree-huggers, may have been speaking truths that are more relevant to our society in the 21^st century than they were back in the 1800s.

So, in the Thoreauvian spirit of simplicity, I am going to cut this one short and simply enter one plea to this reading audience (all five of you). Take the ear buds out while you are in the hallways, stores, and restaurants and open your eyes and ears to the limitless world around you.

(Editor’s note: Those first two paragrpahs were mostly just a self righteous, sanctimonius display of ostenatatious erudition and do not really have much to do with this column).