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Let Teenagers Sleep

scientificamerican.com

241–250 of 497 posts

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In order for children to be able to commit to 2 hours extra of their time BEFORE their parents get home (5pm), class would have to end by 3pm Why would they need to be able to complete their sports before their parents get home?

It was probably more accurate to say before their parents get off.

I still don't really understand why this is important. Presumably kids aren't playing sports every day of the week, so they'll have plenty of time to spend with their parents on the other days. I used to play Tennis from something like 5pm to 7pm a couple of days a week when I was a kid and that didn't seem to cause any problems.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#242
post #78
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Because a guidance counselor doing a good job is really boring, they ask you where you want to go to school, get you links to those applications, and maybe walk you through the application/point you to a campus resource that'll proofread your essays before you submit them. None of these are particularly note worthy, no one's going to go home and write about that experience, so you don't hear about it. That's what my…

I'm often surprised that so many folks seemed to have "Guidance Counselors" at their schools. I went to a public science and technology magnet school in Kansas during the 90s and I don't think I ever saw a guidance counselor ever.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#243
The problem is if you start later, you'll end school later which means you'll start activities/dinner/homework later and go to bed later and there wont be much difference.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#244
post #164
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? Sports can practice before school. And high school athletes don't need parental supervision. School hours are set by transportation needs, as you already observed.

School hours are set by tradition. My city provides no bus service to any students (excepting special needs kids). Crazy I know. Kids can ride the city metro buses for free, but those aren't the same as school buses.

What's the rationale for some schools having a bus service and others not? In Australia, I'm not aware of any metropolitan state school having a bus service, so it sounds bizarre that buses would dictate starting times.

Some private schools might have small buses. Otherwise, public and private students would use public transport, ride, walk or get dropped off by parents.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In order for children to be able to commit to 2 hours extra of their time BEFORE their parents get home (5pm), class would have to end by 3pm Why would they need to be able to complete their sports before their parents get home?

It was probably more accurate to say before their parents get off.

[deleted]

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#246
post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There should be two categorizations for students: highly creative students should be placed on a different path to adulthood, everybody else could use the current system. Highly creative people are more likely to be successful dropouts. To force highly creative people into this routine, is dictatorship of the mind. That's how it was for me. Edit: I upset the academics :)

How would you identify highly creative people? Genuinely asking. If you advantage them, parents will do everything they can to make their kid look like one even if they aren’t one. And some kids will not look like one due to a bad home life or food insecurity or untreated developmental disorder.

You don’t advantage them. A creative track is probably as infuriating to a non-creative person as the current system is to creative ones. Creative tracks should still have outcomes.

It’s like trying to cheat your way into professional sports: if you are not a good fit, it won’t be pretty. And indeed we do have a track for athletes.

To think that all students are identical and they all deserve the same track is myopic. Turns out, we are all different people.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#247

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…

I dunno man, pre-civilisation and education wasn't exactly much fun either. I'd rather be a part of the system that basically gives us everything from food to iPhones and the Internet than fight against it (while avoiding predators in the wild). This is not to say that education, especially for boys and young men couldn't be made considerably better.

There's always the question over whether a comfortable unnatural life is better than the sort of hunter-gatherer life our brains and bodies spent most of the human generations adapting for.

No matter, without organized mechanized agriculture and the nitrogen fixation process and other technology of the present, most of us would be dead and not able to ponder the question.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#248

The real blame for early high school is extra-curricular sports. Basketball, Football, etc. For those sports to thrive, teams need to practice, in order for practice to be efficient, it needs to be at least an hour. So 2 hours are allocated (suit up, practice, suit down). In order for children to be able to commit to 2 hours extra of their time BEFORE their parents get home (5pm), class would have to end by 3pm. Now,…

In my high school we had a few "competitive" sports teams, which really meant just absolute suffering. Kids would be waking up for 2 hours of swim practice before class, where they would be puking on the edge of the pool, followed by more practice after class, then they had to you know do the whole homework part time job and get into college thing in whatever time is left. Wrestling was just as bad but the kids would starve themselves or wear trashbags under hoodies during the day to make weight on tournaments, along with chewing tobacco to spit more water. At least our football team and basketball teams sucked enough for the players to never take practice or games seriously.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Being good at one thing doesn't make you good at everything. See elon musk.

Whilst I love the cynical view, and it somewhat sadly clicks. I agree high school education sits in the grey. From personal experience the most valuable lesson I leaned in high school is when I was doing something I was interested in getting sleep didn't matter. But learning how to grind through work is a really useful like skill. There's no way to teach hard work. You just got to do it.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#250
post #184

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…

Thinking everything is a conspiracy is giving the assholes too much credit. The education system is an education system. It's bad because it's underfunded, mismanaged, and pulled in multiple directions for political reasons, not to mention occasionally tasked with impossible jobs, such as keeping a roomful of emotionally disturbed children going in the same direction using only one underpaid teacher and a couple para…

> Thinking everything is a conspiracy is giving the assholes too much credit.

"maxwellhill"? :) https://www.nytimes.com/1989/05/18/business/mcgraw-hill-and-... / https://archive.is/bZKuA

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