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

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

#131

Post by tozeur »

stephen_g wrote: post #81
patorjk wrote: post #6

> night owls were especially vulnerable, many appearing so chronically jet-lagged that they were unable to perform optimally at any time of day. I experienced this with an 8am biology class I was required to take. It wrecked my whole day. About 1/3 of the way through I just started skipping the class and then later getting notes of the lecture from a friend of mine. It ended up working dramatically well. I got an A,…

My worst semester at University I had three 8am lectures... I knew I was a bit of a night owl, but at this point I didn't realise that I actually had a severe sleep disorder. I had just assumed that what people said (you just have to be disciplined, just go to be earlier, etc.) was potentially true, which was demoralising. It was actually pretty liberating to find out about differences in circadian rhythms. I still g…

How did/do you deal with your different circadian rhythm? I have a friend who can easily sleep 12 hours at a time and consistently goes to bed past 3am and wakes up in the afternoon (and has also dealt with depression in the last). I’m wondering what else I can do to help besides push for no screen time past 10pm etc.

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

#132

Post by war1025 »

tmuir wrote: post #115
imjk wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember nothing worse in High School than waking up showering and getting dressed for school, only to have PE class first period.

What was so traumatizing about the showers available to you in high school? Because I certainly remember first period gym, and I just took a shower afterwards. Then I was right as rain.

Probably the effort of getting ready once and then having to get ready again. Not traumatizing, just a pain. Some people are particular about their routines.

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

#133

Post by WhompingWindows »

Great study, really interesting. I'd like to see a follow-up study with the following design:

Find high schools with rotating class schedules (i.e. math is at a different time of day each day for 6 days, then loop that), then find high schools with fixed schedules (i.e. math is always first period for some students). Then, compare performance of night owls in the two different schools. Theoretically, if the authors' study is generalizable from college to HS, then the night-owls should do significantly worse in the early AM classes in the non-rotating school, and significantly better in the early PM classes in the non-rotating school.

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

#134

Post by dang »

tmuir wrote: post #127
briandear wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does that have to do with school start times? Do parents take “parental leave” every morning to take their kids to school later? Of course not. And maternity/paternity leave has little to do with school age kids. France has the “genius” idea to have school only 4 days per week in most places. So Wednesdays off. Parents have to figure out what to do with their kids — they can’t exactly take off every Wednesday. A…

Let me guess, you believe governments should be run like companies, right? Perhaps, ask yourself why you come down on the side of moneyed interests in every point you make. When I see this kind of dogmatic badgering, Its almost like my brain is superimposing a Fast Fourier Transform frequency plot on that person, and all of the energy is found to be in a single bin. Your single bin is money. As this pure tone, it is…

This crosses into personal attack. Please resist the temptation to do that even when you disagree strongly. It's particularly bad when combined with ideological battle, which is off topic on HN to begin with.

This isn't an agreement or disagreement with your underlying views; it's that you can't go offside when expressing them. Same applies to the other team.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Edit: it turns out you've been doing this a lot. We ban accounts that do that, so please don't do it any more.

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

#135

Post by war1025 »

jamescostian wrote: post #125
WhompingWindows wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with that is rotating schedules is more economically efficient than loading all the class-types onto one time of the day. This would mean you need more PE teachers in the morning, more math teachers in the mid-day. There's a reason schools have multiple periods of each course, and that those periods rotate day-to-day. One interesting follow-up study could be to compare night-owls/morning-larks in rotating…

> There's a reason schools have multiple periods of each course, and that those periods rotate day-to-day Could you elaborate on this? What is the reason? Saying it's "more economically efficient" than grouping class types is something many of my teachers would disagree with, as they have lives they would love to get to outside of school (e.g. if a PE teacher gets out early in the morning, they can go to their second…

At least where I went to school, teachers generally had full schedules with maybe one period empty for prep. If they are teaching multiple sections of the same class, it isn't feasible to lump all classes of a certain kind into one part of the day. The same person can't teach multiple classes at once.

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

#136

Post by cheez »

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…

> It starts this early so parents can get their kids to school and start working afterwards, without getting fired.

Yep. School is subsidized babysitting.

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

#137

Post by olympus »

jamescostian wrote: post #125
WhompingWindows wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with that is rotating schedules is more economically efficient than loading all the class-types onto one time of the day. This would mean you need more PE teachers in the morning, more math teachers in the mid-day. There's a reason schools have multiple periods of each course, and that those periods rotate day-to-day. One interesting follow-up study could be to compare night-owls/morning-larks in rotating…

> There's a reason schools have multiple periods of each course, and that those periods rotate day-to-day Could you elaborate on this? What is the reason? Saying it's "more economically efficient" than grouping class types is something many of my teachers would disagree with, as they have lives they would love to get to outside of school (e.g. if a PE teacher gets out early in the morning, they can go to their second…

Because a single PE teacher can manage five rotating classes of twenty kids throughout the day. If kids didn't rotate periods, then all 100 kids would take PE at the same time. That would require extra PE teachers, because one teacher cannot manage 100 kids. Multiply this effect by every different area (music teachers, art teachers, etc.) and you have to hire a bunch of extra teachers which is a waste of money. Plus, those teachers would only be busy for part of the day, so their wasting a lot of their time.

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

#138

Post by justherefortart »

anotheryou wrote: post #49
justherefortart wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go to bed earlier. I get up early and have since High School. All I do is make sure I go to bed at a reasonable hour. Going to work, lunch, home early is friggin awesome. Avoiding rush hour, saving me roughly 1 hour a day in traffic, is fantastic. Plus it gives me time to do any personal things in the early afternoon without affecting my work schedule.

Yea, that's the "compatibility mode" I'm running on: strictly going to bed at 11pm. I sadly really miss the nights and have to force myself to do this daily. Here in europe daylight saving time just ended, now I have go to bed an hour earlier from one day to another. It took me out for 4 days (really bad performance) and the first 2 days I stayed awake in bed so long I became more awake again before managing to fall…

I go to bed between 8-9pm, rarely as late as 10pm.

Going to bed means I'm reading a book (physical, not digital) and winding myself down from the day.

I find exercising during the day helps immeasurably when trying to go to sleep at a reasonable hour (based on your own schedule). Also limiting caffeine after lunch.

To people that say it's impossible, maybe it is. I did have a late schedule for a few years in college (waiting tables until close). I still scheduled my classes for 9/10am at the latest starting time though. Maybe my working out when I get up helps as well. Plus personal discipline (both going to bed and getting up regularly).

I get 8-9 hours of sleep every night outside of rare exceptions. My mom said I've been this way since childhood. I would never give up sleep to stay up late, unless absolutely necessary.

My high school buddies would give me hell during the week, but I got up at 5:30am for my early bird weightlifting every day. So 9pm was "late" for me.

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

#140

Post by WhompingWindows »

wpasc wrote: post #53

I disagree with ideas that school schedules should shift later. I am a night owl myself, but our "natural" sleep cycle certainly more or less falls in line with school times. We have fully disrupted our circadian rhythms with our lifestyles and especially screens/lights at night. Before artificial light, our sleep/wake schedule was set by the sun. I know we live in a different world today, but I feel like shifting ou…

Do you have any evidence to support those claims, specifically that night owl's "natural" sleep cycle falls in line with school times? There is substantial biological evidence that phenotypes for night owls vs. morning larks do actually exist. Are you suggesting it is "natural" for a night owl to be focused at 8am, which is around the average start time for the earliest classes in our education system?
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