Jamus has some points about starting time for schools.
Yesterday at 13:48 ·
Before our daughter was born, I used to get up, every morning, at around 5:30 am (sounds crazy, I know). I would awaken, clear emails for a half hour while I got the sleep out of my eyes, then head out to the gym or for a run. After brekkie, I would trek to the office and bang out a couple of hours of solid work. By 10 o’clock, just as many coworkers were streaming in, I would have already gotten much done, well before meetings and other disruptions crept in.
My habits then are not that unusual for those who are older. But this isn’t the case for pre-teens and teenagers. Many students often feel compelled to stay up late, and feel that they are most productive in the wee hours of the morning. There is a reason why this is the case, beyond a desire to listen to late-night radio. Our bodies respond to biological cues, and the so-called circadian rhythms of youth differ from that of adults. Put another way, teens sleep late because Mother Nature deems it so.
That’s why early classes are such a horrible experience for the young—they are literally fighting nature. This may seem like no big deal, since you may say nobody pays attention for morning classes anyway. But it isn’t costless. Research has shown that when adolescents sleep more, they have better behavior, health, and even do better in school! Here’s one such study:
https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aau6200 as well as a review:
https://doi.org/10.1111/josh.12388. Think about it; all those endless hours tuition, moving to get closer to a preferred school, the endless bottles of essence of chicken. All that, just to squeeze a few more points. And yet we ignore the much simpler strategy: get more sleep.
That’s why having a staggered start to schools—a half hour later (8 am) for upper primary, a full hour for secondary (8:30 am), makes inherent sense (and as someone who lectures to bleary-eyed undergrads, a 9 am and later start for tertiary is also appealing). Would this just lead to a shift in bedtimes, negating the effects of a later start? As it turns out, evidence suggests otherwise. While students do end up in bed later, they tend to not do so by as much as the delay, thereby enjoying real gains in rest.
Another common objection is that it could exacerbate jams, especially during the morning rush hour. Setting aside how callous this is (do we really want to deprive our kids of better health and grades so we don’t sit a little longer in traffic?), it is also unlikely to be a problem. Many upper-primary and secondary kids already make their way to school using mass transport, such as public and private buses. Besides, most pickups would in any case occur earlier, between 7 and 8., before the times many office workers begin their commute. Staggering the cohorts would further smooth traffic flow, relieving the current crunch that occurs with most schools starting at a common 7:30 am. If you live near a school yourself, you’ll probably understand what I mean.
In his reply, Education Minister Chan explained that “many schools” already have later start times for some days. But he declined to provide details when I followed up with a question about what proportion of schools did so routinely. While a single-day late start would still be welcome by students, it won’t move the needle in terms of actually changing sleep habits for our kids. Coordinating a later start across all schools is a better way to pick this low-hanging policy fruit.
#makingyourvotecount
