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Let Teenagers Sleep

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#221

Post by waboremo »

Waterluvian wrote: post #142
rajin444 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to be really big on trust the experts, seek authorities for advice, etc etc. Especially for areas involving mental / general health. Specifics like fixing a broken arm I’m still on the experts side :) Decades later I’ve had many (eerily similar) experiences to what you detailed above. I’ve gotten the best results evaluating issues on my own / with the help of a few trusted sources. Expert advice is about as re…

I don’t distrust modern medical community, but I think it often suffers from overconfidence that leads me to more carefully scrutinize (but not outright reject) expert opinion. I’ve been listening to a podcast called Sawbones where they talk through the history of medicine. It’s basically a tour of all the ways we got things wrong. My conclusion has been: and why are we so confident that this time we’re right? Seems…

If we expect every day to be an improvement, the needle has been moved forward that much more, how else would history function except a retelling of mistakes, missteps, and wrongdoings?

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#222

Post by codingdave »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #157

Its a common misconception that the goal of Education System is to educate. It's not, and the system will never accept 'improvements' that run contrary to it's purpose. In actuality education system serves four purposes: One: make both parents avaliable for the job market. For that it must supervise children during work hours, to make sure they aren't getting in trouble, drugs, or worst of all, into politics and prot…

You are grossly mischaracterizing the word "purpose". The purpose is to educate.

Yet the flaws in the system are quite real, and you have called some of them out. But calling out the flaws and claiming they are the intended purpose is quite simply wrong.

BTW, you can change who is in control - school boards are locally elected. Your vote has more power to change schools than almost anything else. If you want improvement, get involved.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#223

Post by Levitz »

robg wrote: post #70

Really amazing that two key bugs in schools work actively hurt the brain’s ability to learn, remember, focus, and make decisions: 1. Long school days mean brains are overworked and so don’t function well 2. Multi month summer breaks actively overwrite what was learned the prior year When will schooling be built to best optimize brain power?

To your second point, that's just a testament of the failure of schooling.

If anything, the only things kids learn are those that they still know after summer break, or better yet, a couple of years afterwards.

The current model is based on memorizing a whole lot of stuff and then later forgetting it. very little is learned at schools and high-schools. The relationship between invested time and knowledge returned is appalling, but it makes sense once you accept that, like others in the thread have said, school and high school are essentially grown-up childcare.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#224

Post by thegrimmest »

krolden wrote: post #160
lotsofpulp wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is “they”, and why do you presume “they” pushed for women being able to work because it would benefit families? I want women to be able to work because I want the women in my life to not be caught under the thumb of an abuser. If it harms families somehow, that is a separate problem, with separate solutions that do not have anything to do with restricting the independence of women. >Especially since women are pai…

"They" in this context are the people who benefit from an increased labor pool (capitalists, who want lower wages for everyone) and those who thought it was done for their benefit. >This is not true when comparing the price of the same labor offered by a man or woman. Okay, maybe not HALF, but you can't argue with the gender wage gap. Men make ~20% more than women. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/wb/data/occupations

> Men make ~20% more than women.

This is so disingenuous it really shouldn't be repeated. The pay gap within the same job is miniscule. Men and women make different career choices. There's just no accounting for the lack of women applying for high-paying positions as roughnecks.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#225

Post by beebmam »

navierstokess wrote: post #173
beebmam wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As an adult, I eat no carbs, all meat and vegetables This is contradictory. Vegetables are high in carbohydrates as a percentage of their calories.

Low carb doesn't mean you can't eat food with carbs, it means most of your diet is protein and fat, and you restrict carbohydrate consumption. He can have a low carbohydrate diet while eating vegetables, as long as he eats less vegetables than meat.

He said he eats no carbs.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#226

Post by runarberg »

SoftTalker wrote: post #193
joezydeco wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly why. We've been at our administrators for years and the response always is "the bus routes" but in reality it's because of the sports schedules. High school sports is a drain on the educational system, plain and simple. It lacks equity - an disproportionate amount of money is spent on very few children. The football coach in our HS has a Vice Principal title, so he doesn't have to teach classes but kn…

Private sports outside of school are too expensive for all but the well-off families. School sports are basically free for the participants, and they are good for kids' social development and physical health. Sports keeps many kids in high school, certainly if my oldest hadn't had cross-country and track he probably would have dropped out.

In Europe these clubs are often community or publicly funded. If they charge partition fees, you’ll often find municipalities subsidizing them heavily making them effectively free for kids and parents. Now there is still some problems with this system (in particular overemphasis on sports over other cultural activities such as theater, music, etc.)

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#227

Post by cperciva »

Jun8 wrote: post #15

This post on the front page was SO timely for us! My son (16) was feeling very sleepy and tired the past week. On Friday he took a brief nap at 5pm, but woke up next morning, after 15 hours. This morning when I went to wake him up at 6am he just couldn’t make it so I let him stay at home. This never happened before.

In addition to things like sleep apnea, this could be a viral illness (mononucleosis is famous, but there are other "post-viral fatigue" culprits) or even type 1 diabetes (before I was diagnosed, the first sign I noticed was sleeping 16 hours a day). Has your son lost weight recently?

There a lot of possibilities but I'd encourage you to not just write this off as "he's a teenager". He didn't just become a teenager in the last week.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#228

Post by [deleted] »

legitster wrote: post #47
jobs_throwaway wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why we have school busses. Why are children being tasked with transporting other children to school?

School busses are shared across age ranges. So teenagers get the first bus, then middle schoolers get one an hour later, then grade schoolers. So if you punt the highschool bus to later, you are either making for a very late school day, or making younger kids wake up earlier. Or the solution could be to triple the cost of school transportation.

[deleted]

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#229

Post by chasd00 »

solveit wrote: post #44
fdgsdfogijq wrote: post #17

As a teenager I was diagnosed with "ADD". Very intelligent, but unable to focus or complete assignments. My life habits were carb heavy unhealthy food (from the cafeteria), soda, lack of sleep due to long school commute, not much exercise As an adult, I eat no carbs, all meat and vegetables, I work from home and sleep in as far as I need every night. My thinking is laser sharp. They tried to medicate me with all sort…

> My guidance counseler suggested I dont attend college, just a community college (despite the fact that I got admitted to a decent state school) What's wrong with guidance counselors in American high schools? Why do I keep hearing about them giving kids incredibly stupid advice?

> Why do I keep hearing about them giving kids incredibly stupid advice?

most people with insight on good advice do not become high school guidance counselors. why would they?

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#230

Post by eldaisfish »

chasing wrote: post #209
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #157

Its a common misconception that the goal of Education System is to educate. It's not, and the system will never accept 'improvements' that run contrary to it's purpose. In actuality education system serves four purposes: One: make both parents avaliable for the job market. For that it must supervise children during work hours, to make sure they aren't getting in trouble, drugs, or worst of all, into politics and prot…

This is a deeply cynical view and mistakes what makes educating children challenging for the goals of education. Some educators suck. Some educational systems suck. Some engineers suck. Some tech companies suck. But to paint the entire educational system with the same shitty brush is absurd. I know many teachers and many people who work in education who go above and beyond to try to give kids the best experience poss…

I find a lot of commentary here to be false dichotomies. Here, education is either bad or good when the reality is that it depends. Some aspects are good, some are bad, some are good in some places, worse in others.

A lot of people struggle with complexity and it is telling that a forum focused on computer science, IT and general tech is so challenged to realise this.

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