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Let Teenagers Sleep

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Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#361

Post by Symbiote »

freetime2 wrote: post #293
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…

> The football coach in our HS has a Vice Principal title, so he doesn't have to teach classes but knocks down $100K+ to run the team Presumably being Vice Principal carries other responsibilities beyond just coaching football. For perspective, the Vice Principal at my high school didn’t teach classes OR coach any sports - being Vice Principal is a full-time position on its own. And this was in a school with far fewe…

I'll bet your vice principal could teach classes, and used to teach classes before being promoted. They may even do so occasionally, if a teacher is unexpectedly sick. My school's vice principal taught two class, so about 4 hours a week IIRC.

I'll also bet that's unlikely to be the case for the football coach.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#362

Post by steve_adams_86 »

yamtaddle wrote: post #114
steve_adams_86 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird. My guidance councillor did the same. Well, I wasn’t accepted to a school at the point in which they encouraged me to settle for less, but it was a very heartfelt “don’t even try”. I left the room very confused and upset. Went in with ambition and excitement about my future and left feeling like I must be a complete idiot. I remember her saying “Let’s focus on being realistic. You aren’t actually going to do th…

> I’d add though that unlike you, my diet more or less went the opposite direction and I feel much better too. I went completely plant-based with an emphasis on whole foods and as far as I can tell my entire body works better. I’m not saying you’re wrong because I absolutely believe you and agree that we were probably just extremely unhealthy before. Maybe any healthier diet would have sufficed. But yeah, this thing…

It's true. I think we collectively know this too, but trick ourselves into thinking we're not the ones eating the SAD. In reality, most of us are; it's sort of like we think we aren't the traffic. McDonalds doesn't serve billions because none of us eat there, and the grocery store doesn't have aisles of garbage because no one's eating it. I think we also have a tendency to under estimate just how frequent our indulgences are, even if we generally eat a bit better than the SAD. This is how we gradually become obese. It's definitely a weakness in the human psyche.

A major eye opener for me after the last couple of years has been how crazy our diets really tend to be and how easy it is to just stop it. Like, I used to battle internally about if I ate well enough that day to eat [insert garbage here]. Like that's ever a conversation worth having with yourself, or it would ever make sense to want the garbage in the first place. But I figured I was eating whole foods (usually, I guess, maybe?), eating meat from "good" and "ethical" sources, eating what I thought was a lot of vegetables.

And yet the science shows that people who eat like I did are dying earlier than they need to and suffering from diseases people didn't typically get up until recently. And I found myself gradually gaining weight despite not noticing a change in my caloric intake.

I'm not sure exactly what caused me to snap out of it (there were several factors), but in any case, I'm glad I did. And you're right – eating well is trivial if you're starting anywhere near the SAD. With a bit of motivation you can level up tremendously with minimal effort.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#363

Post by uncletaco »

mcv wrote: post #323
uncletaco wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Practice is every day of the week in the US For high school football players it's basically practice Monday-Thursday then game on Friday. For basketball players it's basically any day during the week that they don't have a game. I was in marching band and we practiced after school every day.

Sorry, but that's insane. That's fine for high-level near-professional sports, but for some basic school sports, training every day is ridiculous and sacrificing the health and education of the students for it is just plain stupid. Why does this happen? Why does everything have to move for this? And if they really absolutely want to do this during daylight hours, why not have the sports before school, and have just t…

I'm gonna be real with you: it was fun. I was never the best athlete or trombone player when I did marching band but myself and many other kids who honestly didn't have a future playing sports at a collegiate level had genuine fun playing and practicing.

And after school is literally the most convenient time to practice for everyone involved including coaches, parents, and students due to the peculiarities of American living. When I was in school around half of American school children played some kind of organized sport and most probably got the same night's sleep as the other half that didn't. At the collegiate level they do what you suggest and often have two practices a day in the morning and evening for the biggest sports.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#364

Post by goodpoint »

dragonwriter wrote: post #104
autoexec wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why are you blaming the parents? Because when Boston tried this, uproar from parents was sufficient to cause meaningful change, but that uproar was directed at their schools and not their workplaces. They used their collective power to defend their work schedules at the expense of their children. Why not insist on more flexibility in their work schedules, or for additional transportation solutions to assist in gett…

> Because when Boston tried this, uproar from parents was sufficient to cause meaningful change, but that uproar was directed at their schools and not their workplaces. School officials are locally democratically accountable . Employers generally are not, and are often able to play workers in different localities (and even states and countries, in many cases) against each other to create a race-to-the-bottom effect.…

> Parents directed their force against the movable object, not the immovable one.

But it was the wrong one, while making victims in the process.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#365

Post by goodpoint »

mcv wrote: post #338
tmpz22 wrote: post #40

As a teenager I used to stay up until 2-3am watching movies on my ipod touch - which had a ludicrously small screen by todays standards. I'm in favor of moving back start times but we should also better study and educate on the consequences of bad personal habits.

My son's internet goes out at 21:30. He did once rack up a tremendous phone bill by using his phone at night, but I think he learned not to do that any more.

21:30? Is he 5 years old?! Poor guy.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#366

Post by stonogo »

gnarbarian wrote: post #346
stonogo wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Way to shoot down an argument nobody was making. OP referred to safe, which Baltimore isn't, and yet kids take the public buses as the primary transit to and from school all over the city for the past several decades.

You know, now that I think about it. I bet the school buses aren't very safe in Baltimore either.

Baltimore does not have public school buses. That's what I've been saying. Students take the city bus system.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#367

Post by Symbiote »

closeparen wrote: post #308
xster wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry if it's an ignorant question since my kid hasn't reached sports age yet. But athleticism doesn't seem like it should be an optional choice that detracts from other educational resources. Why not make it mandatory, 1h a day for everyone? Saves on travel, saves on transition time, saves on economy of scale and it's more equitable since everyone pays through taxes and everyone benefits in the short term (more pare…

Generally everyone has to take gym class. Sports are additional. Teams are competitive to get into and different kids will specialize in different ones depending on their strengths and interests. Some schools do require every student to choose at least one sport. There are other extracurriculars such as drama, speech & debate, and special choirs or chamber orchestras that may or may not be compatible with different s…

What did you do in gym class?

In England, we had a short "physical education" class once a week. That varied between gymnastics, swimming, badminton, indoor cricket, athletics, and occasionally other indoor-ish things.

We also had an afternoon ice a week of "games", which was football, rugby, hockey, cricket, softball or similar. Longer, always outdoor sports.

(This will probably vary within England, I don't think I've ever asked other people what they did.)

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#368

Post by uzername »

I've seen this for many years, I think it's even been tries here in Twin Cities MN schools. Bus driver shortage and route consolidation of the last few years probably didn't help, but perhaps the "take the city bus" routine for high school students has changed the behaviors a bit. Getting off the school provided dependency could help shift the timings to what works best and not necessarily need to account for sports students.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#369

Post by zoomablemind »

gabereiser wrote: post #57

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,…

Quoting from the article:

"...A delayed school start could also mean adults with inflexible work schedules are late for work."

In my view, the whole school system largely appears to be a way to safely contain our kids, while we're working hard in the offices or elsewhere. So traditional inflexibility of office working arrangements (opening times often tied to other points of economy, like store or market hours) reflects onto the school starting times. This is especially exacerbated by work commute times.

I was once shocked to learn that some suburbian colleagues had to wake up before 5am in order to be ready in the downtown office by 8am; yep, they would drop off their kids at school too before taking train to the city, that is the kids would start before 8am or at least go for an early drop-off, either way being already awake.

Perhaps the remote work could make this more bearable but most of working parents would rather keep the established school starting hours as being fitting "ok". As for the kids, they just learn to dread the start of another school day and clockwatching it till the end.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#370

Post by [deleted] »

clint wrote: post #242
xypage wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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