I despised high school.
I loved seeing my friends everyday. I liked most of my teachers. I had fun in most of my classes. I enjoyed most of the material. What I did not enjoy was that I had to do all those great things while running on less than six hours of sleep, dragging myself from class to class, brain-dead. Why couldn’t school just start two hours later?
Most high schools in the nation, including mine, start their school day around 7:30 in the morning. This means that teenagers have to wake up as early as 5:30 in order to make it to school everyday. The problem with this is that adolescents are biologically wired to stay up late at night and wake up late in the morning. Schools need to take this into account and adjust their start times so that students are not tired during the day.
Currently, only fifteen percent of American high schools start at 8:30 or later, and forty percent start before 8:00. This leads to teens getting six to seven hours of sleep per night on average, when they need eight to ten to function properly. A National Sleep Foundation poll found that 87% of high schoolers get less than the recommended 8.5 hours of sleep per night.
The lack of sleep is taking a huge toll on the nation’s high schoolers. Sleep deprivation leads to a lack of focus and impaired memory, both of which are imperative in a learning environment. This is in addition to all the negative health consequences that a lack of sleep entails, such as increased risk of high blood pressure, obesity, and cancer.
The biggest obstacle in changing high school start times, as it so often is, is money. School districts like to use the same buses for high school, middle school, and elementary school kids. This means that they have to wake up at staggered times in the morning. However, elementary school kids should wake up earlier, because high schoolers typically have more stress and tend to go sleep later due to their natural circadian cycle. The other problem is that parents like to drop their kids off to school in the morning, before they go to work. Parents will have to adjust their schedules so that kids can get more sleep, and our nation’s youth can become more productive, healthier, and safer.
I could not agree more that high school starts way too early. During my four years of high school, waking up and getting through the first few periods of the day was absolutely horrendous. On average I would get about 5-6 hours of sleep per night which is not an adequate amount for full brain productivity. Sometimes I would get so tired to the point where I would go to the nurse and call my dad to pick me up from school and take me home. With the amount of classes and homework that I had during my high school years, more time to sleep in the morning would have been extremely beneficial. I remember purposely scheduling easier classes for my first few periods of the day because I knew I would have more difficulty concentrating in the morning. Changing high school start times to later in the morning would increase students’ ability to concentrate in school and do well.
I love your topic choice. I’ve always hated waking up early for class. My lack of sleep definitely affected my concentration and focus during school. My friend switched to my high school mid semester and, unlike her old school which began at 8:15 am, mine begins at 7:25 am. She always complained that the time difference negatively affected her grades due to lack of sleep and concentration. I agree completely that the start time for high schools should be later and the time of elementary or middle schools should be made earlier.
Oh god yes, i used to hate waking up early! Your article is so correct that teens run on later sleeping schedules then children. When I was little I woke up everyday at 5 am to watch the Little Mermaid cartoon show and it was never difficult. I know many european schools start at later times and have shown that this is positive for students academic ability. Another big reason that American schools are reluctant to start high schools later is they don’t want extra-ciricular actives ending at night. But in the european schools that i mentioned they combat this by having these activities take place before school starts. Perhaps we could employ this in our school systems. Heres an article on european schools starting later then american ones http://educationnext.org/do-schools-begin-too-early/
I love this post. Waking up early has always been a struggle. It wasn’t that I hated school, I was just extreeemeeeelllllly tired. Sometimes I even fell asleep, not that I wanted to be disrespectful like most adults may think, again, I was just extremely tired. Here’s a great article explaining why http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/156/getting-enough-sleep-is-no-easy-task-for-todays-students
I also agree that younger kids can wake up earlier than we can, and they’re not asked to do as much in a day as we are, therefore, they should have earlier times than high school students.