Lockers(储物柜)have been the symbol of American high school for decades. But walk down any hallway of the new Germantown High School in Madison County, Mississippi, and you won't spot a single locker.
New technology such as e-books, interactive(互动的)assignments and Web-based learning is making lockers in
American high school a thing of the past.
Officials from schools that have listed several benefits: less noise, less delay and an increased sense of safety.
“It's all to create an environment that's student-friendly”, said Ronnie McGehee, chief official of the Madison County School District.
Getting rid of lockers can also cut hundreds of thousands in construction costs. Madison County saved $200,000 by not including lockers in the new high school, McGehee said.
It is also believed that removing lockers could help prevent school violence. ”Lockers give kids a place to hide things”, said Mike Nelson, founder of a safety- training group. Nelson believes that some school shootings and other incidents could have been prevented if there had been no lockers.
However, Andrew Booth, a 10th-grader at Gemantown High, said there are some disadvantages of not having a locker. “It can make your book bag really heavy”, he said. The 16-year-old has four textbooks “plus notebooks and a binder(活页夹)” to carry to school each day.
He said some teachers have shelves at the back of the classroom on which students can leave their bags. Others provide an extra set of textbooks in the classroom, so students don't have to carry books from home.
New York architect Peter Lippman said schools will have to address such concerns and find ways to give students a “sense of space” “If you are carrying books around, it does limit your flexibility in the classrooms,” he said.
Lippman said he would like to see schools starting to use the new free space to provide less structured learning opportunities for students, including gathering areas and learning centers. “If you think about a school with just rows of lockers-there's nowhere for learning opportunities in that”, he said.
