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from the and-teachers-can-work-later... dept.
American teenagers, rejoice ! The American Academy of Pediatrics wants all US schools attended by children aged 10 to 18 to delay their opening times to 8.30 am or later. Currently, only 15 per cent start after this time.
The aim is to tackle widespread sleep deprivation by helping teenagers manage the shift in their body clocks that coincides with puberty. This turns them into "night owls" who favour going to bed and rising 2 hours later than when they were younger. Research has shown that this results in more car accidents, increased late arrivals at school as well as lower grades, and higher risks of depression, moodiness and obesity.
A poll published in 2006 ( http://sleepfoundation.org/sites/default/files/2006_summary_of_findings.pdf [PDF] ) by the US National Sleep Foundation found that 59 per cent of middle school students and 87 per cent of high school students were failing to get the recommended 8.5 to 9.5 hours sleep on school nights.
[Additional Research] http://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/11299/162769/1/Impact%20of%20Later%20Start%20Time%20Final%20Report.pdf [PDF]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Covalent on Wednesday August 27 2014, @09:12AM
We followed the advice of this research. Two things happened:
1. Students stayed up later.
2. Attendance got much worse.
Why? #1 is probably poor parenting mostly. Kids up until 3am on their phone instead of 2am. #2? Kids were now coming to school during rush hour traffic.
I teach chemistry and am all for improving the quality of education. But there is more to consider than just biology. Also noticeably absent is the degree of improvement. How much better did the late risers do? Probably not very much.
My easy solution: gym class first hour. Kids get much needed exercise, are not required to do major thinking, get a chance to fully wake up, etc.
You can't rationally argue somebody out of a position they didn't rationally get into.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 27 2014, @11:36AM
Won't work. At my local high school Gym is never held first period as no one shows up for first period anyway. They have to take attendance for the school day/state funding second period. It is a waste of resource to have a class taught and have 15 percent show up. Everyone has to take gym and therefore attendance rates are the worst out of the classes offered. Making it first thing in the morning only decreases the poor attendance rates.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday August 27 2014, @02:13PM
As for 1, naturally, they weren't exhausted from getting up much too late. As for 2, perhaps school should have started AFTER rush hour.
But the key question would be how were their grades? You say probably not much better, but you seem to lack the certainty of your first two statements. How is it you know less about the thing you could measure than you do about something you couldn't (or did you visit their homes in the night to see when they went to sleep?)