> Terra Ziporyn Snider of Severna Park, Maryland, still remembers how difficult it was for her son to wake up for his 7:17 a.m. first-period class…
> That’s about to change in California, when a law—the first of its kind in the nation—goes into effect on July 1 requiring the state’s public high schools to start no earlier than 8:30 a.m., and its middle schools no earlier than 8 a.m.
Wow. I may need to reassess my definition of “sleeping in”.
(Spoken as someone who had incredible difficulty getting to school by 8.50am back in the day and who hasn’t gotten up before 10.30am in the last week!)
Does that law account for "zero period"? From my quick reading of the bill, I think it does not -- so probably not that much will actually change. School may start at 8:30, but zero period will still start around 7:30, and some schools might create a double-zero to go earlier still.
It is absurd how early schools start. Objectively, there was no good reason why I had to be on my spot on the field at 7:08a every morning only to be done by 2:50p.
I gasped at the 7:17am opening class time. That's absurd. I think mine was something like 8-8:30am, and even that was hell. It would even be absolute hell now as an adult.
I honestly think our schools are a generally a massive waste of time and money, as they are now. Meaning, they meed to i prove. They have basically become daycare centers. The education is really not good, and no one is learning anything. Then you graduate only to be greeted with the basically mandatory acceptance of debt and another four years of extended high school or a lifetime of labor jobs.
Idk, it is a matter of preference. I was hard for me to get up for school because I went to sleep late, because I didn't care enough about school. If the school started (and ended) later, then I'd to sleep even later. What mostly matters after all is the number of hours you slept.
When I got to the army I needed to constantly get up at around 0530. What I found out is that it's not a problem for me (and I firmly believed it would be nearly impossible) if I go to sleep early enough. It worked for most of people around me as well. Since then I don't think getting up earlier or later really matters, I decide it based on the stuff I want to do and not the other way around.
My HS (early 2000s in the Midwest) started at 7:0x through the years, I remember 7:04 and 7:07 start times. It was all about “minutes of education” as that’s what the funding for schools was based on. 5 minutes between classes to hit your locker, the restroom, chat with friends, and get to your next class. They were such jerks about it that they’d literally lock the doors to the classrooms the second the bell rang, then do hall sweeps with the security guards and anyone who didn’t get into a classroom got automatic detention. If that happened 3 times in a school year, you’d get a week suspension and your parents would have to come in and talk to one of the vice principals.
I went to a high school in the same district as this one, 7:17 am was absolutely brutal. I had it timed down to the minute so I could sleep as long as possible and not be late once I started driving myself.
When I was teaching, I'd get into school for about 7:15am (so wake up at about 5am), so I could make sure I was prepared for my lessons that day. My first class was never before 9am, and school ended at 3:30pm.
I just couldn't have coped classes starting that early.
Yeah, my high school started at 8:50 am too, and that still felt too early. This article mentioned that Seattle high schools used to start at 7:50 am, that seems absolutely nuts.
I’d peg roughly 9:30 am as a good time for high schools to start.
Ireland here. My school (which thought entirely through Irish, aside from English lessons, obviously, advertised itself as starting and finishing early, and it started at 08:30 as well.
It's weird looking back on high school and realizing how much of it was ridiculously cruel. You'd have teachers and parents all telling you that it's your fault for not having better time management skills or executive functioning skills, all the while you're 15; you're still growing mentally and physically; you're sleep deprived as hell; and the work is just piling on, and on and on. Their advice, I kid you not, was to just squeak in work in every possible situation. On the subway? Read your assigned book. In class? Sneak in some homework. And sure, kids procrastinate. But they procrastinate because they want to have leisure and they feel absolutely no control over their lives.
Good luck if you did a sport. I remember hearing some elite fencers talk and all of them said essentially "yeah...I didn't get a lot of sleep in high school". That's not some innocuous hard work ethic mindset. That's messing with a developing brain and depriving it of a necessary resource.
It pisses me off that we're just realizing that this culture of torturing teenagers is maybe not the best idea.
I recall simply being unable to wake up for first period at 8am most days, in late high school. Waking was painful and nothing felt better than sleep. However at night, despite efforts at good sleep hygiene and consultation from a counselor, i couldn’t get to sleep before 11 or later. My grades and mood suffered greatly, as did the relationship with my poor mother. She battled with me day after day, first thing in the morning, to go to school.
The first few years of college I did not schedule any classes before 10am and had effectively perfect attendance. Mood problems faded as soon as high school ended.
Even today, in my 30s, a day or two with poor sleep will make a noticeable mood dip regardless of circumstances.
But as an older adult, I naturally wake up at 6:00 every morning. It was the same for much of my childhood except a few years of high school. So perhaps this was a developmental thing.
Pretty much the same. It's like everything is exactly backwards. High school was brutal. I should have started school at 11 AM. Now, I absolutely get my best work done between 5 AM and noon.
University labs were always 8 AM, so wasn't much of a choice to try to do later, especially in the first two or three undergrad years. Even at that age, it was still a struggle. Why not night lab? Surely there's a doctoral student willing to attend to some freshmen doing reactions at 8 PM, right?
My high school started at 8:30 twenty years ago, and it was hell waking up to be there on time. Cut a period and let kids go in at 10am. 9:30am at the earliest. This, of course, will never happen. Even if it did happen, school at 10 implies that kids will wake up at 9 or earlier, which is still torturous.
School start is really bounded by the start of the average parent’s workday, unfortunately. Mom and Dad start work at 9 am. Kids need to be at school before then. None of this 10 am start talk makes sense for the kids that aren’t on the bus line and have parents that drive them to school.
Same. Hell on earth. I would never get up fresh no matter how early I went to bed. Most of my health problems started there and so many possibilities were lost! I'd rather have skipped early lessons, get bad marks, but had more energy to study later!
This is pretty cool and it's probably healthy. I was homeschooled my whole life with super strict parents - mom was an Olympian, and my father owned a construction company. My brother and I had to be up by 5:30AM for chores and exercising as this was also my moms routine. We were doing school work by 8:00AM with a small break around 10:30AM, then lunch at noon.
After lunch, we went out to help my father build houses, then off to sports practices (typically two separate practices for two different sports) and classes at the local college. By the end of the day you're exhausted!
A large part of why my parents were so strict is because we were really poor and my parents were determined to not only get out of poverty but also to teach us a good work ethic.
So part of me is really biased in thinking "these kids have an easy schedule, why is it so hard for them to get going in the morning?"
I wouldn't recommend my upbringing necessarily, but also can't help but wonder if kids had a stricter routine, regularly exercise, good diet, and family support if it wouldn't be slightly easier for them to start the day early.
But also on the flip-side I think it's great to let them sleep in because I remember how I felt, and how my friends felt.
Lastly, perhaps public education is partially at fault? Sitting in a classroom for hours every day is exhausting, so how about a more hands-on method of learning where kids actually stand at a white board and write out problems and solutions - something that might work in the lecture part of chemistry, physics, math, and perhaps other courses?
- We did this in homeschool as well as at the local college I attended and it absolutely helped me wrap my head around things better!
I ultimately have no dog in the fight as my family and I do our own thing, this is just my opinion.
> why is it so hard for them to get going in the morning
I get that there are a lot of valid cases where the answer is "homework", "circadian rhythms", "evolution", but...
80% of the answer here is electronics, and really just social media + smartphones. It's incredibly easy to stay up too late when you're hyperconnected and chatting with your classmates late into the night. It just wasn't even a possibility 20 years ago.
It’s not the state in control of when children sleep, it’s business owners.
Children are dropped off at school at the time that allows the parents to get to work at the time required by their boss. And they’re picked up when their boss let’s them go.
The school day (in the form of sports/clubs etc) is extended to keep up with longer working days and the second parent having to work full time instead of part time.
And two parents have to work because they need the combined salary to make the mortgage work, for a home big enough for everyone.
We work too long and too much for too little and if we don’t address the root causes then little is going to really change
> And two parents have to work because they need the combined salary to make the mortgage work, for a home big enough for everyone.
This is the key right here.
I blame monetary policy for too-low interest rates, which drive up housing prices. I also blame over-restrictive zoning and other restrictions on building that cause houses to be more expensive.
> Children are dropped off at school at the time that allows the parents to get to work at the time required by their boss. And they’re picked up when their boss let’s them go.
If only there were some way for students to get to school that wasn't their parents dropping them off. Some kind of bus maybe, but for students. We could call it a "school bus" perhaps.
> That’s profoundly unsettling, particularly in light of data released by the CDC in April showing that 44 percent of high schoolers said they’d had “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness” during the past year, and 20 percent had seriously contemplated suicide.
One second-order effect of Covid is that it completely confounds the statistics collection for a wide swathe of issues. With a huge one-off exogenous shock in emotional and physical well-being, it’s basically impossible to make inferences using these statistics from the last couple years.
Maybe we can compute the “Covid baseline impact” but because of the very regional response, it will be extremely hard to control for this factor.
This is ridiculous. The CDC doesn’t care about teenagers’ mental health. They’re using this specific effect as an argument for something they actually care about. School is itself deleterious to teenagers’ mental health. School causes suicide. This is as you would expect from an institution that constrains them from doing what they want and following their interests, that is hostile to their autonomy as such.
> What sticks out is a large decrease in teen suicide rates during the summer vacation months of June/July/August. In contrast, the somewhat older group sees, if anything, an increase in suicide rates in the summer. There’s also a drop in high school suicides in December, around winter vacation.
In the UK it's normal for schools to start around 9am. I thought this was some kind of avant gate experiment letting teens start at 11am, I would've loved that at 15. I didn't realise schools started so early in the states, 7am seems pretty sadistic to me
> The Good: I think even mentioning the lack of sleep for kids as a problem is a good first step. As far as physical health, learning, and daily mood goes, good sleep is a really big part of the equation.
> The Bad: Despite having a later wakeup time, I think most teens probably will not get a whole lot of extra sleep. Kids are kids and will stay up later to play games, watch movies, or do whatever else they love to do knowing that they have more time to sleep in.
> The Ugly: I think acknowledging the mental health crises among many kids is a good step, but I don't think you're going to really fix anybody who might be in a danger zone by telling them that they have the option to wake up a bit later. I sincerely doubt that a sleep deficit is the issue that inspires extremely negative life-threatening behavior among anybody.
PS: As a practical matter, was it mentioned in this article if ending times for schools were changed by this new policy? If it was, I didn't notice it, and that's what I wanted to see mentioned here. I'm just thinking about my own past experience, but if school begins say an hour later but also ends an hour later, I'm not sure that would have been a net benefit to school-aged me. It would have been very difficult for me to get all the way out to my soccer practice or work my part-time, after-school job if the school's ending time was pushed back.
I get it... at the same time though, sure it was hard to wake up in the morning but that's because I would be up till 12 am playing video games, lol.
I can easily see tons of kids going "oh now I can stay up till 1-2 am" and as someone that is currently struggling to actually fix my sleep schedule after going WFH, its hard to stay on track.
Despite all that though, I do hope this shows potential or at least reveals new information.
I wonder how much of this problem is caused by our sedentary lifestyles.
I am a bit of a night owl myself, but I sleep much more soundly if I have a lot of physical activity across the day. If I walk 20 000 steps and spend an hour in the gym, I have no trouble falling asleep.
Teenagers being the bombs of energy that they are, might need some 5-6 hours of physical activity to actually tire and sleep well. But a typical highschooler sits most of the day on his/her ass.
Individual and age based preferences for early or late sleeping schedules have been observed in modern day hunter gatherer tribes. It is highly doubtful that this has anything to do with modern lifestyles instead it is a feature of humanity.
The concept that everyone should keep the same sleep schedule and at that an early rising one is the product of the industrial revolution and Protestant work ethic in the west. It is unnatural.
Personal anecdote but I was extremely active in high school, playing football, mountain biking 20-40 miles every week, and working an outdoor job, and it was a nightmare to wake up for my 9:15am classes. High school for me was 1999-2003 so I didn't spent a whole lot of time on the computer, which was in my older brother's room.
Thank goodness. May this herald the beginning of an era of sensible public school policies. We don't need to be making the lives of teens harder than they already are.
7:30am class was only part of the problem. Sports practice before school (that would need to conclude before 7:30am class) meant I woke up at 5am for much of my high school years.
I was attending a boarding school in the 1990s as an 'external' student (which means I lived at home and commuted in each day). They started their first period at 7:15 am, because that allowed everyone to go to mess hall at the same time during dinner.
Which meant that to catch the bus, I needed to rise at 5am, showered and dressed half-dead, got into the bus at 5:45am, arrived around 6:45am, and stood another half-hour freezing. My brother, who attended another school, started at 8am, which afforded him 80 more minutes of sleep...
For normal classes which I had several periods during the week, one being in the early-morning spot did not make much of a difference. Then, one year, I got my favourite subject - physics - scheduled for monday morning, 7:15am, and thursday afternoon at 4:30pm.
I failed that class - in a subject in which I used to be a straight A student.
The policy had other effects, too. Eventually, I went on autocontrol, getting in on bank holidays (because at 5:00, I would wake automatically, but still was too brain-fogged to realise it was not a working day) on more than one occassion.
All that research about teenage circadian cycles came later - and it had absolutely no effect. My nephew is in that very school today (and thanks to my suggestion, because if you take the early rising aspect out, those were the best days of my school life). They still start at 7:15am.
Our 12-year old (but turning 13 soon! :eek:) has to leave the house on foot at 6.50am at the latest for the 10min walk to the station to catch a train to school, he gets there around 7.35am and his first lesson starts at 7.50am
Our 9-year old leaves on a (non-electric) scooter at 7.25am for the 10-min journey to school, he needs to be there for 7.45am
Our 6-year old leaves with me either in the car at 8.25am if we're late, or 8.15am on bikes if we're early, for kindergarden.
I think I very rarely woke up earlier than 7h30 or 8h30 as a kid. I recall school starting usually at 9am.
Nowadays I struggle to get up before 10h30[1] (I set all my meetings starting at 10h30, and usually wake up 10 minutes before them -- the wonders of remote working). I have never been a morning person, and I cannot believe that there are parts of the world where children are forced to wake up so early. I'm sure it's fine for many, but it must be equally terrible for others.
In my college days, classes equally started at 9h, but I almost always managed to get them later. There was this own professor who insisted on having his class tart at 8h30 which is incredibly frustrating: he was a drunkard who, in spite of being the only one to haave a class start before 9AM, was always late, and AFTER 9AM. I got up way earlier because of this garbage human.
(I still very clearly hold a grudge against him, because he marked my final grade a 19.4/20; I'm sure he did it because he didn't want to give me a 20).
[1] I can get up before 10h30 fine, and sometimes I get up as early as 6h30 "as needed". But it's definitely not good for me "in the long run" and renders me less productive overall. It is clear my natural rhythm is going to bed at 2h-4h and waking up at 12h-14h. Alas, I go to bed at 2h-4h and wake up 10h-12h. I suppose I'll die younger, but such is life.
It's not the amount of sleep, because I've often been able to do great on just 3-5h of sleep consistently. I can sleep 5h, 10h, you name it, and it doesn't matter if I wake up early. Waking up early really ruins me.
When I was in high school I went out to catch the bus around 0630, and if I didn't have some caffeine before starting the day being able to focus was nearly impossible. I could function with less sleep then, but even so mornings have always been difficult. I tend to be far more productive at night, and falling asleep is earier during the day.
Perhaps someday the routines of society will be able to accomodate starting the day a little later, at least I hope so. Maybe having the first few classes be less mentally intensive. It's difficult to implement changes, though... and there is no universal solution that would work for everyone. Maybe some more flexibility so teens can choose their schedules to suit their individual routines- that would be a good starting point- or something like some light calisthenics or a little stretching before beginning the school day... I feel like it might be helpful to ask teens themselves what they think would make their ability to study more productive and it would be very interesting to know what they have to say.
That's amazing. My high school started at 7:05. By senior year, I began systematically missing first period because I just couldn't get up and ready on time without feeling terrible.
In belgium my school started around 8.30, which meant getting up at 7.30 in my case. I always had a very hard time waking up and was often tired during the day. However in summer, time in Belgium is 2 hours ahead of what's considered 'natural time'. In winter, with DST only 1. Summer or winter, I was always just as tired. Now I need to wake up at around 8.30 for work. I'm still just as tired, since I just go to sleep later. So I'm doubtful this will help much since in my experience the hard part is going to bed early enough.
Why shouldn't this be decided at the local level? My high school kids have responded to a later start time by going to sleep later, so I'm not sure there has been much benefit.
[+] [-] tailspin2019|3 years ago|reply
> That’s about to change in California, when a law—the first of its kind in the nation—goes into effect on July 1 requiring the state’s public high schools to start no earlier than 8:30 a.m., and its middle schools no earlier than 8 a.m.
Wow. I may need to reassess my definition of “sleeping in”.
(Spoken as someone who had incredible difficulty getting to school by 8.50am back in the day and who hasn’t gotten up before 10.30am in the last week!)
[+] [-] codefreeordie|3 years ago|reply
It is absurd how early schools start. Objectively, there was no good reason why I had to be on my spot on the field at 7:08a every morning only to be done by 2:50p.
[+] [-] mod|3 years ago|reply
In the afternoon, I was the last dropoff, which I thought was grossly unfair.
[+] [-] bmitc|3 years ago|reply
I honestly think our schools are a generally a massive waste of time and money, as they are now. Meaning, they meed to i prove. They have basically become daycare centers. The education is really not good, and no one is learning anything. Then you graduate only to be greeted with the basically mandatory acceptance of debt and another four years of extended high school or a lifetime of labor jobs.
[+] [-] EvgeniyZh|3 years ago|reply
When I got to the army I needed to constantly get up at around 0530. What I found out is that it's not a problem for me (and I firmly believed it would be nearly impossible) if I go to sleep early enough. It worked for most of people around me as well. Since then I don't think getting up earlier or later really matters, I decide it based on the stuff I want to do and not the other way around.
[+] [-] seanp2k2|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dgfitz|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] preisschild|3 years ago|reply
This was very unfortunate as I lived in another state and had to sit 2 hours in public transit, so I had to wake up at 5:45.
I remember almost sleeping after lunch and not learning anything because I was too tired.
This stuff should be fixed everywhere. Getting up this early is not helpful.
[+] [-] NonNefarious|3 years ago|reply
My elementary school started at 9. I don't remember when junior high started, but high school was 8:40 I think for homeroom.
Then school ended at 3. If kids are starting school at 7, when does their day end? What excuse are schools giving for this?
[+] [-] MarcScott|3 years ago|reply
I just couldn't have coped classes starting that early.
[+] [-] yashap|3 years ago|reply
I’d peg roughly 9:30 am as a good time for high schools to start.
[+] [-] messe|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ajsnigrutin|3 years ago|reply
I mean... 7am, I get... 7:17?! Did someone throw the dart at the clock and hit the 17 minute mark?
[+] [-] permo-w|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hardwaregeek|3 years ago|reply
Good luck if you did a sport. I remember hearing some elite fencers talk and all of them said essentially "yeah...I didn't get a lot of sleep in high school". That's not some innocuous hard work ethic mindset. That's messing with a developing brain and depriving it of a necessary resource.
It pisses me off that we're just realizing that this culture of torturing teenagers is maybe not the best idea.
[+] [-] ruffrey|3 years ago|reply
Even today, in my 30s, a day or two with poor sleep will make a noticeable mood dip regardless of circumstances.
But as an older adult, I naturally wake up at 6:00 every morning. It was the same for much of my childhood except a few years of high school. So perhaps this was a developmental thing.
[+] [-] ibejoeb|3 years ago|reply
University labs were always 8 AM, so wasn't much of a choice to try to do later, especially in the first two or three undergrad years. Even at that age, it was still a struggle. Why not night lab? Surely there's a doctoral student willing to attend to some freshmen doing reactions at 8 PM, right?
[+] [-] copperx|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] munchenphile|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] IYasha|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rpdillon|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hstan4|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] refurb|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dzhiurgis|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xxEightyxx|3 years ago|reply
After lunch, we went out to help my father build houses, then off to sports practices (typically two separate practices for two different sports) and classes at the local college. By the end of the day you're exhausted!
A large part of why my parents were so strict is because we were really poor and my parents were determined to not only get out of poverty but also to teach us a good work ethic.
So part of me is really biased in thinking "these kids have an easy schedule, why is it so hard for them to get going in the morning?"
I wouldn't recommend my upbringing necessarily, but also can't help but wonder if kids had a stricter routine, regularly exercise, good diet, and family support if it wouldn't be slightly easier for them to start the day early.
But also on the flip-side I think it's great to let them sleep in because I remember how I felt, and how my friends felt.
Lastly, perhaps public education is partially at fault? Sitting in a classroom for hours every day is exhausting, so how about a more hands-on method of learning where kids actually stand at a white board and write out problems and solutions - something that might work in the lecture part of chemistry, physics, math, and perhaps other courses? - We did this in homeschool as well as at the local college I attended and it absolutely helped me wrap my head around things better!
I ultimately have no dog in the fight as my family and I do our own thing, this is just my opinion.
[+] [-] bpodgursky|3 years ago|reply
I get that there are a lot of valid cases where the answer is "homework", "circadian rhythms", "evolution", but...
80% of the answer here is electronics, and really just social media + smartphones. It's incredibly easy to stay up too late when you're hyperconnected and chatting with your classmates late into the night. It just wasn't even a possibility 20 years ago.
[+] [-] goodpoint|3 years ago|reply
If anything, that teaches people to hate work (and life).
[+] [-] switch007|3 years ago|reply
Children are dropped off at school at the time that allows the parents to get to work at the time required by their boss. And they’re picked up when their boss let’s them go.
The school day (in the form of sports/clubs etc) is extended to keep up with longer working days and the second parent having to work full time instead of part time.
And two parents have to work because they need the combined salary to make the mortgage work, for a home big enough for everyone.
We work too long and too much for too little and if we don’t address the root causes then little is going to really change
[+] [-] clarkmoody|3 years ago|reply
This is the key right here.
I blame monetary policy for too-low interest rates, which drive up housing prices. I also blame over-restrictive zoning and other restrictions on building that cause houses to be more expensive.
[+] [-] warning26|3 years ago|reply
If only there were some way for students to get to school that wasn't their parents dropping them off. Some kind of bus maybe, but for students. We could call it a "school bus" perhaps.
[+] [-] theptip|3 years ago|reply
One second-order effect of Covid is that it completely confounds the statistics collection for a wide swathe of issues. With a huge one-off exogenous shock in emotional and physical well-being, it’s basically impossible to make inferences using these statistics from the last couple years.
Maybe we can compute the “Covid baseline impact” but because of the very regional response, it will be extremely hard to control for this factor.
[+] [-] dbavaria|3 years ago|reply
https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/mental-health/index.htm#:~:....
[+] [-] barry-cotter|3 years ago|reply
> What sticks out is a large decrease in teen suicide rates during the summer vacation months of June/July/August. In contrast, the somewhat older group sees, if anything, an increase in suicide rates in the summer. There’s also a drop in high school suicides in December, around winter vacation.
https://www.basilhalperin.com/essays/school-and-teen-suicide...
[+] [-] joe__f|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] logicalmonster|3 years ago|reply
> The Good: I think even mentioning the lack of sleep for kids as a problem is a good first step. As far as physical health, learning, and daily mood goes, good sleep is a really big part of the equation.
> The Bad: Despite having a later wakeup time, I think most teens probably will not get a whole lot of extra sleep. Kids are kids and will stay up later to play games, watch movies, or do whatever else they love to do knowing that they have more time to sleep in.
> The Ugly: I think acknowledging the mental health crises among many kids is a good step, but I don't think you're going to really fix anybody who might be in a danger zone by telling them that they have the option to wake up a bit later. I sincerely doubt that a sleep deficit is the issue that inspires extremely negative life-threatening behavior among anybody.
PS: As a practical matter, was it mentioned in this article if ending times for schools were changed by this new policy? If it was, I didn't notice it, and that's what I wanted to see mentioned here. I'm just thinking about my own past experience, but if school begins say an hour later but also ends an hour later, I'm not sure that would have been a net benefit to school-aged me. It would have been very difficult for me to get all the way out to my soccer practice or work my part-time, after-school job if the school's ending time was pushed back.
[+] [-] robswc|3 years ago|reply
I can easily see tons of kids going "oh now I can stay up till 1-2 am" and as someone that is currently struggling to actually fix my sleep schedule after going WFH, its hard to stay on track.
Despite all that though, I do hope this shows potential or at least reveals new information.
[+] [-] inglor_cz|3 years ago|reply
I am a bit of a night owl myself, but I sleep much more soundly if I have a lot of physical activity across the day. If I walk 20 000 steps and spend an hour in the gym, I have no trouble falling asleep.
Teenagers being the bombs of energy that they are, might need some 5-6 hours of physical activity to actually tire and sleep well. But a typical highschooler sits most of the day on his/her ass.
[+] [-] colechristensen|3 years ago|reply
The concept that everyone should keep the same sleep schedule and at that an early rising one is the product of the industrial revolution and Protestant work ethic in the west. It is unnatural.
[+] [-] TaylorAlexander|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jxf|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] phamilton|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DocTomoe|3 years ago|reply
I was attending a boarding school in the 1990s as an 'external' student (which means I lived at home and commuted in each day). They started their first period at 7:15 am, because that allowed everyone to go to mess hall at the same time during dinner.
Which meant that to catch the bus, I needed to rise at 5am, showered and dressed half-dead, got into the bus at 5:45am, arrived around 6:45am, and stood another half-hour freezing. My brother, who attended another school, started at 8am, which afforded him 80 more minutes of sleep...
For normal classes which I had several periods during the week, one being in the early-morning spot did not make much of a difference. Then, one year, I got my favourite subject - physics - scheduled for monday morning, 7:15am, and thursday afternoon at 4:30pm.
I failed that class - in a subject in which I used to be a straight A student.
The policy had other effects, too. Eventually, I went on autocontrol, getting in on bank holidays (because at 5:00, I would wake automatically, but still was too brain-fogged to realise it was not a working day) on more than one occassion.
All that research about teenage circadian cycles came later - and it had absolutely no effect. My nephew is in that very school today (and thanks to my suggestion, because if you take the early rising aspect out, those were the best days of my school life). They still start at 7:15am.
[+] [-] logifail|3 years ago|reply
Our 9-year old leaves on a (non-electric) scooter at 7.25am for the 10-min journey to school, he needs to be there for 7.45am
Our 6-year old leaves with me either in the car at 8.25am if we're late, or 8.15am on bikes if we're early, for kindergarden.
After all that, my wife gets up :)
[+] [-] jorl17|3 years ago|reply
Nowadays I struggle to get up before 10h30[1] (I set all my meetings starting at 10h30, and usually wake up 10 minutes before them -- the wonders of remote working). I have never been a morning person, and I cannot believe that there are parts of the world where children are forced to wake up so early. I'm sure it's fine for many, but it must be equally terrible for others.
In my college days, classes equally started at 9h, but I almost always managed to get them later. There was this own professor who insisted on having his class tart at 8h30 which is incredibly frustrating: he was a drunkard who, in spite of being the only one to haave a class start before 9AM, was always late, and AFTER 9AM. I got up way earlier because of this garbage human.
(I still very clearly hold a grudge against him, because he marked my final grade a 19.4/20; I'm sure he did it because he didn't want to give me a 20).
[1] I can get up before 10h30 fine, and sometimes I get up as early as 6h30 "as needed". But it's definitely not good for me "in the long run" and renders me less productive overall. It is clear my natural rhythm is going to bed at 2h-4h and waking up at 12h-14h. Alas, I go to bed at 2h-4h and wake up 10h-12h. I suppose I'll die younger, but such is life.
It's not the amount of sleep, because I've often been able to do great on just 3-5h of sleep consistently. I can sleep 5h, 10h, you name it, and it doesn't matter if I wake up early. Waking up early really ruins me.
[+] [-] fritztastic|3 years ago|reply
Perhaps someday the routines of society will be able to accomodate starting the day a little later, at least I hope so. Maybe having the first few classes be less mentally intensive. It's difficult to implement changes, though... and there is no universal solution that would work for everyone. Maybe some more flexibility so teens can choose their schedules to suit their individual routines- that would be a good starting point- or something like some light calisthenics or a little stretching before beginning the school day... I feel like it might be helpful to ask teens themselves what they think would make their ability to study more productive and it would be very interesting to know what they have to say.
[+] [-] stevenpetryk|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kabes|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Bostonian|3 years ago|reply