Live data from Hacker News

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

news.berkeley.edu

201–210 of 458 posts

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

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

comment as been deleted, as much as HN can let me...

I downvoted you because it didn't seem productive to try to start an argument about why people are specifically talking about parents in the context of discussions specific to students and their parents. And you felt it necessary to pretend that people are explicitly trying to give parent's special treatment over non-parents, which isn't something I've seen anyone in this thread argue for. And now I've gone and derai…

> I downvoted you because it didn't seem productive to try to start an argument about why people are specifically talking about parents in the context of discussions specific to students and their parents.

That's fair, my comment does sort of sway. I'd delete it if HN let, my apologies.

To be fair, I did ask what it meant exactly, which was what I led with - but you're right, I did ask a second question.

I'm Still unsure what it means, exactly.

> And you felt it necessary to pretend that people are explicitly trying to give parent's special treatment over non-parents, which isn't something I've seen anyone in this thread argue for.

No, I didn't. I'm not going to argue the root, because you're right, it detracts from the conversation at large. Yet, I was not pretending by any stretch. (ie, my intent was not fake, again, this is not an argument, no one comment lol)

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

#202
post #98

This study was done on college students, not elementary and HS students, college students at Cal . There are a lot of caveats here and trying to apply them to elementary education is good, but outside the scope. Aside: If you really want test scores to improve, give the kids food. My SO is an educator and she's had kids come in that only get food at school. All weekend they may only eat a bag of Cheetos, sometimes up…

Yes, feeding low-income students is critical. However, we have to ask if the school-lunches provided are indeed better than a bag of Cheetos? I worked in the top 3 worst middle school in my state in the poorest city in my state, and I found their school lunches to largely be processed carbs like pizza, burger+fries with no veggies. The veggies that were on offer were in tiny sauce-containers that hardly any of the ki…

Well the protein is good for them. Also they probably got milk as well.

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

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, "I got fired from my job because I couldn't get there on time anymore because school starts too late" isn't particularly good for the children of the people getting fired either.

One person's issue with work is worth compromising the learning of all the other children? That's not exactly what I'd call fair.

It depends a lot on the community where it's happening. In some places, that 'one person' is actually the majority case.

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

#204

During college, I used to play WoW. I think my biological clock was messed up because of it, not because that was my natural biological rhythm. Also, because of the amount of hours I put into WoW, I did not have many hours left to study, affecting my academic performance. Thus, I wonder if the performance is really linked to the biological rhythm, or rather that the biological rhythm is a sign of activities impacting…

I'm with you there. I think the article is bullshit. We are in control of when we go to sleep, and ultimately that determines our circadian rhythm. Not some mysterious unknown force. The correlation with alcohol and drug abuse is a cause not a result.

I was very much in the camp of playing video games all night long but I didn't kid myself about early class times being the cause for my struggle.

* Disclaimer: IANA doctor/biologist. Point me to a study that says we can't control when we go to sleep (aside from other health factors including insomnia).

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

#205
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sleep deprived person is able to sleep in the dark. Try again. And no, even if suboptimal, middle class teenagers don't go through atrocity nor torture. If you actually went to bed and stayed there and could not sleep anyway despite being horribly sleep deprived, then you really should visit some sleep center to help you. It is not nearly the same as mild performance drop due to having suboptimal sleep time.

> sleep in the dark I'm not sure what you're even trying to say. This is about chronotypes and a teenager-specific sleeping pattern that has been identified and studied. Sleep deprivation is torture, this is not my definition. Sorry, we, as a society, decided that not letting people sleep properly is really fucking crappy. If you want to disagree with that, take that up with the party that came up with the terms. Mes…

If you are sleep deprived to the point of "torture" you will fall asleep right during the day in noisy place.

No study of teenagers sleep patterns found that they are tortured via sleep deprivation. That is lie.

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

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(no... The USA is below both Norway and Ireland in the rankings table of GDP per capita, pretty consistently over the different measurements.

>> GDP per capita Are we going to ignore the effects of immigration and the comparative policies of both nations here, or just pretend that a mostly-homogenous nation like Norway (or other Scandi countries) should be equally compared to the United States?

Yes.

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

#207

During college, I used to play WoW. I think my biological clock was messed up because of it, not because that was my natural biological rhythm. Also, because of the amount of hours I put into WoW, I did not have many hours left to study, affecting my academic performance. Thus, I wonder if the performance is really linked to the biological rhythm, or rather that the biological rhythm is a sign of activities impacting…

Well, the biological rhythm can be impacted by much more than just late-night activities. I'm not talking about short term things like jet lag. I'm thinking more chronic things like insomnia, chronic illness/malnutrition, emotional trauma, etc all come to mind. So it would be unfair to place all the blame on students playing WoW or partying instead of studying, for example.

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

#208

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…

School ends at 3pm though, so even if early means getting the kids to school, what about getting them back from school?

Of course there are school buses but then those apply to the morning as well.

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

#209

During college, I used to play WoW. I think my biological clock was messed up because of it, not because that was my natural biological rhythm. Also, because of the amount of hours I put into WoW, I did not have many hours left to study, affecting my academic performance. Thus, I wonder if the performance is really linked to the biological rhythm, or rather that the biological rhythm is a sign of activities impacting…

Yep, this. During summer internships in college I easily transitioned to a fully-functioning 11PM-7AM sleep schedule, but university's manifold distractions pushed me to a 2AM-10AM schedule. And in high school I was chronically exhausted because I'd stay up playing Counter Strike until 12AM every night (in retrospect this probably also limited my achievement in XC and track...). Of course this is all anecdotal.

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

#210
It was shown long ago that your brain doesn't fully wake up anyways until something like 10 AM I believe, if not more like 11 AM or noon. Having students get to school at 6-8 AM is just wasting resources. As some have pointed out though, this runs much deeper than people give credit for. The 8-4 schedule of schools isn't due to random choice, it's built around the entire country from the ground up operating on that type of schedule. People need a system where kids can get sent off to school in a way that doesn't impact adults getting to and from work. If schools started even an hour later, I'd bet at least a few million parents would face hardships in adjusting to get their kids to school and maintain their current job.

Of course there are more efficient times that we could use for school, but they would break the fragile system the US already has in place.

Block scheduling has alleviated the knowledge loss to an extent(imo). By changing from the full 7-8 classes per day schedule to 3-4 classes every day, students can retain more information because they are in each class longer. That also means your homework schedule is drastically less stressful.

I don't see any major changes coming to school times. The issue needs to be discussed, but what really can be done about it?

Post reply on HN