Why do schools have bells?

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Ever since I was about 5 or 6 I've had a phobia of electric bells, even just the look of them fills me with fear.

At school I used to focus on avoiding bells whenever I knew they were going to ring, and it made me look more unsociable than I really was. But whenever I told anyone about my bell phobia, they'd just laugh and think I was making it up. But I wasn't. I suppose people only sympathize with you if your phobias are the same as their's.

Anyway, when I went to high school they actually didn't use bells to tell the time. We had school diaries and all the times of our classes and break periods were on our school timetables and everyone kept on schedule most of the time. Then some genius decided to bring back the bell, and I was happy up until then. Then my anxieties started up again, and it was difficult to avoid being near bells at high school because we were always changing classrooms and some of the science laboratories had bells inside the room. And bringing back the bell didn't really make any difference on people's attendances. It was just a noisy thing that sounded every hour that most the kids and teachers just ignored, being so class times were different depending on what year (grade) you were in, so the bells weren't always relevant.

Why the hell do schools, especially high schools, have bells?

My schools that I went to didn't use actual mechanical bells, just a tone over the intercom that they called the bell. I would have hated it if my schools used actual bells.

I hated end of class time as not sure when bell go and scare me

I suspect the 'why' is for a number of reasons. The technology is established and well-understood, it's cheap to implement and use, and it can reach any (non-deaf) student or staff member no matter where they are on the school grounds. It's also been around long enough to have become somewhat traditional.

Some schools locally use sirens, similar to factories of yesteryear. I imagine that they'd be fairly loud as well, although some crank up gradually as an auditory 'warning' that electric bells generally don't have, and of course bells are far more staccato and hammering than a siren, which can be an issue.

Personally, I'm not a fan of anything which can be heard outside the school grounds. But the bells are at least effective attention-getters, even for people who are focused on some other activity. I wonder what might be an equally effective alternative solution?

The same reason factories have whistles, and prisons have bells.

So they can keep the inmates in line like cattle. And its a tradition. Lol!

But yes - in my highschool they didn't use tardy bells. the mechanical bells were there on the wall, and were used in fire drills, but they figured we were adult enough by that time to not need to hear the bells between each hour class. In fact I remember reading that very thing in some missive from the principal.

I didn't have any kind of sensory issue about bells. So I just accepted it as part of our regimented life. Not that I ever had any choice.

Actually my memory maybe off. It might have been junior high that had that principal that didn't believe in tardy bells, and that I went back to hearing tardy bells in high school. Hard to recall now precisely because ...it wasn't a big deal to me at the time. Sorry to hear that it effected you so severely.

When I was a kid we called it the buzzer, due to the buzzing noise it made. I wasn't fond of the noise but I wouldn't freak whenever I heard it... unless I was still walking to school in the morning and was going to be late. Which was frequently.

It would go off to tell us school was starting, and when recess was over, and when our lunch break was over. Basically whenever it went off we were supposed to line up and go inside the building like good wittle obedient childwen.

Read the works of John Taylor Gatto and you will understand why schools have bells. It is nothing more than telling you that you must immediately take your mind off of the current task you are performing (even if you are engrossed in that task) and move on to the next task like a robot.

A bit of a back story about my phobia of bells. When I was aged 4-7 I attended my first school, which was in a very old victorian-like building. When I was 5, there was a bell outside my classroom (which was along a dark hallway that always gave me the creeps), and there was drips of red paint or something on the bell. One of the kids used to say that the red stuff is blood, and I think that caused me to become fearful of bells. When I first heard it in a fire drill I freaked out because I thought there was something wrong with the bell for ringing so long. I just think it all triggered off my phobia of bells, and also the loud sudden ringing noise that echoed down the hallways of any school just sets my nerves off.

Smoke alarms are very loud too, and I do try to avoid being under one of there is lots of food cooking in the kitchen, but I still don't have a phobia of smoke alarms as such. If I look at one I don't want to run for the hills. Imagine having a bell up on your wall in your house!

Odd...
The very first time I've ever encountered any bells that functions that way at school was at... 4th grade when I had transferred schools.
Before that, it's my own idea of it was practically fictional and just a possibility that it does exists somewhere abroad because that's how it was shown.

Circumstances brought me curiosity instead of fear.
Well, I don't fear loud noises and didn't developed any intolerance towards any noise until 5th grade.
Much more so people here thinks that schools that uses electric bells have more technologies available, and therefore more 'prestigious' or exclusive even. So weird...


Then when I was at college, there's no bells anymore that functions beyond being a fire alarm.


Now I rarely ever encounter any school bells myself. Or any ringing of fire alarms.
Overall, I do not mind -- also I don't really know why there are school bells other than... Well, the old schools here were also took place right next or in churches with priests and nuns for teachers, and kinda assumed it came from there.

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Temple Grandin said that the school bell sounded like a dentist's drill in her ear.

I used to be amused at the sound of my school's bell because it sounded like a cow mooing.

To tell students when class has begun and when it ends.

Bells in my high school were pretty loud and I was shocked when other kids would say they were not loud but they all said the bells were annoying but not loud. That was when I realized I was more sensitive to some sound than others. Sure they didn't hurt my ears either but they were still loud. Or maybe I have my own definition of what loud is.

When I was in primary school, I only heard the bell for recess. That was the cue for recess is over and go back to your class, in my new primary school, the duty ladies used whistles and they would blow it for like ten seconds to alert students recess is over, time to go back to class. We did not have bells but we did in middle school and it was just a beeping sound. They installed that bell when I was in 8th grade. Before then, there was no bell and kids would just be dismissed by their teacher when it was time to change classes.

When I went to junior high school we had a buzzer go off when it was time to go into school whenever a new class had started, and when it was time to go to a different class, and when lunch had started, and when lunch was over. But that was the least of the many problems I had when going to junior high.

I've always had such a bad time with my ears. I feel like I'm going deaf, my ears are always plugged up, and my brain is in a fog so I'm lucky I can still hear sirens or bells.

I still hate bells to this day. Those ugly loud round things hooked up on walls. Ugh!

Nearly every night I have dreams about being exposed to a bell that could ring at any time and that I have to keep up this charade of pretending I'm not afraid of the bells just to be accepted by my peers.
Trust me, that was the hardest thing to do when I was at school. Whenever I was near a bell near a time that it was due to ring, my mouth would go all dry, my heart would beat really fast, I'd shake all over and I jumped at every noise.
One time I was coming out of the lunch room where there was an extremely loud bell in the hallway right outside the lunch room, and it was nearly the end of lunch so I was hoping the bell wouldn't ring as I was right under it. Then someone dropped their fork on the floor and I thought it was the bell ringing, so I literally jumped and my arms involuntarily spazzed out. The kids nearby saw me and laughed at me.

I had the option to stay on at school until I turned 18 but I just wanted to get out of there. I went to college, and they didn't rely on bells there. I was much more relaxed and less jumpy.

"It's all right 'cause I'm saved by the bell."