Somebody once told me that morning announcements are a lot like the Occupy Wall Street movement: both are dead, but it doesn’t really matter because nobody listened to them anyway.  That broke my heart.  You see, it’s entirely true that morning announcements are supposed be painless, simple ways to get information out to large numbers of students, and I’d say that for the most part, that’s what they are.  For me, though, morning announcements are something different.  For me, morning announcements are energy.  They are enthusiasm.  They are love.  They are a way to spread happiness at 7:40, which to me is something really special.

The way I see it, when any announcement comes on, there are two ways the information can be delivered: it can be said traditionally, which means it’s being read off of a paper, it’s being done in a concise manner, and it’s treated as factual information.  On the other hand, it can also be said the way Connor Munsch and I tend to deliver announcements, which involves silliness, loudness, and a healthy dose of improvisation, making it sound more like a radio ad than a high school announcement.  I’m not saying that one is better than the other, by the way; Sami and Shruti do their job beautifully, and they’ve got it down to a science (and I’ve never heard a single person complain about them…).  What I’m saying, though, is that when I come on to the microphone, I don’t want you to sit in your seat and absorb the information, and I especially don’t want you to not listen.  I want you to be startled, to be awoken, to feel the energy that I’m sending to the speaker, and I want you to wonder, “what the heck could this guy possibly be so excited about this early in the morning?”  I want you to laugh at my expense for a bit, I want you to groan at my horrible jokes, and I want you to enjoy the spectacle as it lasts.  All I see on Twitter is people complaining about how boring school life is, and how they would kill for a break from the monotony.  Well, that’s what we silly announcers are trying to give you.

Sure, there are other ways to get information to the student body, like posting messages on the absent teacher board, or contacting people through Facebook, or just posting flyers in the halls, but they really lack that special touch that announcements have.  Our parents have said it a million times: there’s no way to transmit through text the energy that you can transmit through spoken words.  Announcements provide the opportunity to not only get a message to the students, but also to get it to them with excitement and enthusiasm that simply can’t be done any other way.  I don’t know if the student body fully appreciates how amazing that is.  An excited student reading text over the loudspeaker can send loads more information than that same text posted up on the wall ever could.

Keep morning announcements alive and vibrant.  Seriously, who doesn’t love a little goofiness?