Poor Grades Tied to Class Times That Don’t Match Our Biological Clocks • Hacker News Board

Re: Poor Grades Tied to Class Times That Don’t Match Our Biological Clocks

#31

Post by InitialLastName » Fri, Mar 30, 2018, 2:01 PM UTC

mi100hael wrote: post #13

At the same time, the point of college for most kids is to prepare them for a white collar job. If there's a huge client meeting at 10am and there's still 3 hours of preparation to do before they arrive, no one's going to be very sympathetic to the excuse that you have "social jet lag." Expecting college adults to get out of bed before 10 is hardly a substantial burden.

If it's Monday afternoon, you know you have a big meeting at 10AM Tuesday, you know you have 3 hours more of prep to do, and you know you're ineffective in the early morning, why not work later to cover that prep? This sounds like a procrastination problem more than a night owl problem.

Re: Poor Grades Tied to Class Times That Don’t Match Our Biological Clocks

#32

Post by taneq » Fri, Mar 30, 2018, 2:01 PM UTC

InitialLastName wrote: post #23

endymi0n wrote: post #10

I used to have lots of problems getting up early and always championed later times. Growing up through my twenties, it was great seeing finally seeing more and more evidence for a later school start and I was hopeful for future teens. But it wasn't until my first kid that I finally understood that school doesn't start this early because it's good for the learning experience. It starts this early so parents can get th…

That emphasizes that the purpose of school isn't as much to educate children as it is to provide an economy of scale for babysitting so that more adults can participate in the workforce. I wonder how that dynamic will interact with the decreasing need for adults in the workforce.

It doesn't take 12 years to teach a kid calculus and literature and their prerequisites.

Re: Poor Grades Tied to Class Times That Don’t Match Our Biological Clocks

#33

Post by tjr225 » Fri, Mar 30, 2018, 2:01 PM UTC

I dropped out of high school partly because waking up was such a painful experience for me. Of course as an adult I wake up at 5:45-6AM.

Re: Poor Grades Tied to Class Times That Don’t Match Our Biological Clocks

#34

Post by danharaj » Fri, Mar 30, 2018, 2:03 PM UTC

Goronmon wrote: post #17

zaroth wrote: post #7

Our school district just spent the last year trying to convince parents we should shuffle around start times to make high school later and elementary school earlier. It was a complete clusterfuck. Both teacher and parents alike at both the elementary and the high schools all had a million reasons why it couldn’t possibly work. Since there are a limited number of buses which are shared, you can’t move one start time w…

Of course none of the debate actually addressed if students would possible learn better from it. Is that important if there is no way to make a different schedule work from a practical perspective?

Raising children is one of the fundamental processes of human society. If there really were a will, we could rearrange everything for them.

But the way we treat children and teenagers is rather callous and cynical at the system level.

Re: Poor Grades Tied to Class Times That Don’t Match Our Biological Clocks

#35

Post by tudelo » Fri, Mar 30, 2018, 2:03 PM UTC

taneq wrote: post #32

InitialLastName wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That emphasizes that the purpose of school isn't as much to educate children as it is to provide an economy of scale for babysitting so that more adults can participate in the workforce. I wonder how that dynamic will interact with the decreasing need for adults in the workforce.

It doesn't take 12 years to teach a kid calculus and literature and their prerequisites.

A kid. Now put 30 in a classroom.

Re: Poor Grades Tied to Class Times That Don’t Match Our Biological Clocks

#36

Post by froindt » Fri, Mar 30, 2018, 2:04 PM UTC

macmccann wrote: post #9

The problem in college is bad, but the problem is some high schools is even worse. At high schools without block scheduling, every day might be a 6 am alarm to get to school by 7:00.

Block scheduling was absolutely amazing, and I'm so glad I had access to it. My school did "modified block" with skinny classes (40 minutes) and blocks (85 minute). The only skinny classes were math, music, and foreign language, all of which seem to have a big benefit from going the full year. The concept of trying to do a chemistry or physics lab in 40 minutes sounded awful.

My high school ran from 8:45-3:10. Morning activities were typically 7-8 or 8:15, so you could still drop by teachers classrooms before school started.

Re: Poor Grades Tied to Class Times That Don’t Match Our Biological Clocks

#37

Post by AndrewDucker » Fri, Mar 30, 2018, 2:05 PM UTC

mi100hael wrote: post #13

At the same time, the point of college for most kids is to prepare them for a white collar job. If there's a huge client meeting at 10am and there's still 3 hours of preparation to do before they arrive, no one's going to be very sympathetic to the excuse that you have "social jet lag." Expecting college adults to get out of bed before 10 is hardly a substantial burden.

If you have a huge meeting at 10am and three hours of prep - then work late the previous day.

Re: Poor Grades Tied to Class Times That Don’t Match Our Biological Clocks

#38

Post by Retric » Fri, Mar 30, 2018, 2:06 PM UTC

sk1pper wrote: post #19

Isn’t your chronotype fairly mutable though? With some dedication and a couple weeks you can adjust to waking up whenever. Especially at college age. Obviously lifestyle could be limiting if you’re trying to start waking up at 6am, but if you’re optimizing for GPA, then you’re gonna have to make lifestyle sacrifices anyway

If you are willing to use window blackout blinds and sunlamps on timers then it's not that hard. However, in collage with a roommate that's not necessarily possible.

Re: Poor Grades Tied to Class Times That Don’t Match Our Biological Clocks

#39

Post by brightball » Fri, Mar 30, 2018, 2:07 PM UTC

endymi0n wrote: post #10

I used to have lots of problems getting up early and always championed later times. Growing up through my twenties, it was great seeing finally seeing more and more evidence for a later school start and I was hopeful for future teens. But it wasn't until my first kid that I finally understood that school doesn't start this early because it's good for the learning experience. It starts this early so parents can get th…

Schools can still help with this by trying to schedule the core academic stuff later in the the day and the less mentally intense stuff like PE earlier in the morning.

My kids' elementary school actually does this. They tell parents "if your child has a doctor's appointment or needs to be out for a portion of the day, schedule it at the beginning or end of the day to make sure they don't miss anything important."

Re: Poor Grades Tied to Class Times That Don’t Match Our Biological Clocks

#40

Post by anotheryou » Fri, Mar 30, 2018, 2:09 PM UTC

I like how it shows that getting up early ruins the whole day.

I have to come an hour early for a meeting every other week and it's always a challenging day...

Getting up ~9am is the point at which it doesn't effect my performance anymore (I'd still prefer shifting my sleep phase even further). Sadly this only worked for a job once in my career.