121–130 of 317 posts
[1] http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-school-start-time-...
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"public" meaning what. Both legally and socially, caring for children is mandatory. We had a breakdown of extended family structure (aunts watching the kids for an hour or two) and neighborhoods (same but for elderly neighbors, sometimes compensated). Everyone knows child care is labor intensive. Nobody knows how to pay for it is all.
At government expense
One of the many fascinating facts I learnt from Matthew Walker's "Why We Sleep" is that the biorhythms of teenagers are shifted to later hours compared to those of adults in all human cultures of the globe, even in those rare societies hardly affected by technology. In evolution this was likely beneficial to make it easier for teenagers to socialize among themselves without adult disturbance, which was necessary to d…
I would argue that this ultimately has to do with one survival trait: who has more sex. I’m guessing that far more teen pregnancy occurs when teens are hanging out without adults around. The ability to shift to different sleep patterns than adults would be among other things, a procreational advantage.
It's very unlikely anyone gave a damn about who was having sex with who and at what age before our population sizes reached levels where paternity mattered.
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Make attendance mandatory and create some comfortable spaces for in-between classes.
We all know that the same teenagers that want to sneak out of their houses at night to go on their escapades (typically 2:1 supervision) would totally follow the rules of mandatory attendance (40:1 supervision )
Some kids skip school. I did... twice in my school career. I imagine some kids would still skip school, but there is no real reason to think it would be higher than it is now.
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You’re really off about that. Our night vision is actually pretty good, especially if you’ve used it for every night of your life. Fire’s clearly been with us for long enough to be a factor, in addition. I’m against the hypothesis though, if only for the fact that energy levels peak shortly after waking up - “why we sleep” discusses this a little. That book also suggests the variety of sleep patterns exists for evolu…
>Our night vision is actually pretty good It isn't good enough to see what's going on when it's actually pitch black, which it is most of the time at night. > Fire Lighting a fire at night in the place where you're having sex seems like a pretty good way to get discovered. > Having a multitude of waking/restful cycles in a group kept our ancestors protected with a nearly round the clock group of protectors - who ever…
It's pitch-black for city dwellers with eyes unadapted to darkness. Weather allowing, for most of the time you have moonlight providing good enough illumination to (carefully) navigate the outside.
My daughter's school just changed all lessons to start an hour later for a few cohorts, as an experiment. My daughter likes that she gets to sleep longer. But it also means we don't get to see each other at breakfast, however brief that is. I'm worried that more or less halving the number of times we see each other will have an impact on social cohesion. Of course, one solution would be for everyone to just started a…
As a teenager I would hate you for that :). Part of the reason I seem to be wired for night life since my teenage years is probably because that's the time everyone else is asleep, giving time to think, concentrate, enjoy experiences without interruptions, and generally not be interrupted by other people's random nonsense.
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yea but we're not in tribes, are we? People take this evolutionary bullshit way too seriously, like we still run around with sticks and stones. None of that crap matters when we live in a modern society. Teenages are going to "socialize with themselves" whether they sleep in or not, no matter what, because, guess what, that's what people do in modern times. They can choose.
Depriving people (especially, but not only, adolescents) off their sleep is disastrous for their mental health. For instance ADHD may be linked to lack of sleep (Walker suggests this in his book, I don't know how strongly this is backed by studies). Since by now we know that sleep times are driven by physiological factors to a large degree, I find it inhumane to not take these factors into account in scheduling.
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Make attendance mandatory and create some comfortable spaces for in-between classes.
Attendance is mandatory already. This will just make it easier for kids to leave. In fact, they'll be coming and going all the time. Isn't that the whole point?
Just because it is "more like college" doesnt mean it is an exact replica.
One of the many fascinating facts I learnt from Matthew Walker's "Why We Sleep" is that the biorhythms of teenagers are shifted to later hours compared to those of adults in all human cultures of the globe, even in those rare societies hardly affected by technology. In evolution this was likely beneficial to make it easier for teenagers to socialize among themselves without adult disturbance, which was necessary to d…
Just as likely that teenagers would then be able to stand watch for predators, attacks by other tribes, or hunt for nocturnal prey.