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posted by martyb on Saturday April 06 2019, @05:11PM   Printer-friendly
from the Everybody-Talks-About-It,-And-Finally-Somebody-Is-Doing-Something-About-It dept.

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/oregon/articles/2019-04-04/oregon-senate-oks-permanent-daylight-saving-time

The Oregon Senate has passed a bill establishing permanent Daylight Saving Time in the state, and the Governor has signaled she supports the effort. If it passes the House (and possibly the US Congress, it is a bit ambiguous to me), it could end the semi-annual resetting of clocks which causes so much annoyance and increase of injury and deaths.

Personally speaking, I'd rather it settled on permanent Standard time than Daylight time, but as long as it is steady I think it's better than the current regime.

See also:
Texas efforts: https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=19/03/05/1413228
Europe's efforts: http://fortune.com/2019/03/26/european-union-parliament-daylight-saving-time/
Mandatory XKCD: https://www.xkcd.com/1268/


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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by Codesmith on Saturday April 06 2019, @07:26PM (3 children)

    by Codesmith (5811) on Saturday April 06 2019, @07:26PM (#825481)

    As a educator (of sorts) decended from educators, school, especially elementary school is primarily about socialization. Basic educational processes are good to teach as well, but if you want lifelong learners, you have to let them learn to interact, then learn to learn.

    My father was a counsellor in the secondary system with a core focus on managing intake and in-school operations and he felt that as long as you had Grade 8s entering the school who could: work with peers, read, write enough to be understood, perform the basic math skills and above all, enjoy learning new things, they would be successful students and then successful adults.

    Success is not measured by academic performance for all, success is finding a niche you fit into and enjoy.

    And yes, starting any schooling before 09:00 is a waste of everybodies time, but school operations are managed like businesses. That is the biggest problem.

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  • (Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Saturday April 06 2019, @09:45PM (1 child)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday April 06 2019, @09:45PM (#825513) Journal

    As a educator (of sorts) decended from educators, school, especially elementary school is primarily about socialization. Basic educational processes are good to teach as well, but if you want lifelong learners, you have to let them learn to interact, then learn to learn.

    That's nice. But when are they going to learn to interact with people outside their narrow cohort aside from a few teachers and parents? One thing about working a job under an employer is you get exposure to very different people, particularly in public-facing jobs.

    A huge problem with school is that it is socially isolated - it is rare to interact with students more than two years away from you (I rarely did except in some summer programs) much less the general public. And there's this growing movement towards young adults avoiding employment (and the non profit equivalents) which means some people have avoided exposure to society for more than two decades by the time they get out of college.

    I guess my complaint here is that when all else fails, public education advocates resort to socialization as the excuse for having public schools with the rigid conditions they have. All I can say, is that if socialization is your primary educational product, and as with most schools, students haven't interacted with people far outside their age cohort through to graduation, then there's something wrong.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @03:14AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @03:14AM (#825617)

      One thing about working a job under an employer

      Yeah, because everybody needs a master.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday April 07 2019, @12:22AM

    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Sunday April 07 2019, @12:22AM (#825562) Journal

    And yes, starting any schooling before 09:00 is a waste of everybodies time, but school operations are managed like businesses.

    While running schools like businesses may be a problem, I really don't think it's the main reason for early morning school. Starting school before 9am definitely makes sense because anyone with a small child likely knows that little kids (on average) tend to rise early with the sun -- assuming, of course, that they don't stay up late watching screens.

    What's stupid in many schools is that limited numbers of buses mean they have to run at different times for different levels, and the stupid part of that is that teenagers in high school often end up being the ones picked up at 6am (despite the copious evidence showing adolescents tend to have late sleep schedules on average), while the little kids who have been bouncing of their parents' beds since 6am don't get picked up until a couple hours later.

    Swap those, and you'd actually have a schedule that makes a little sense. But most schools don't do it... And you know why? No, it has little to do with running as a "business." It's because of sports, which generally influence way too may decisions about education.

    Seriously, ask a high school principal some time why you can't start school later. I've taught in such schools, and I have asked. It's because after-school sports meets often already pull kids out of afternoon classes a bit early -- so postpone start time by an hour or two, and sports kids would miss half a school day.

    It's really disturbing how much sports influences money spent on education, how schools are run, what their schedules are, etc. in the U.S. You want to fix school schedules? Start by asking what the priorities are....