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Let Teenagers Sleep

scientificamerican.com

451–460 of 497 posts

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#451

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…

"They want obedient workers. Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork.... " -- George Carlin

Do not get life advice from podcasters, standup comics, or anyone who lives in NYC.

(Because they'll all try to get you to do coke.)

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If.. uhh… society wasn’t so capitalistically expensive as to require the entire household’s adults to work It is a tragedy of the commons problem. As soon as the other spouse starts working, the family has more money, but once every family thinks to have both partners working, sellers will catch on and increase their prices, bringing you back to the initial problem but now with one fewer spouse at home. It's not a…

Sellers aren't free to increase prices whenever they feel like it. Most of them are price takers.

Not sure what you mean exactly. It's already happened currently where a lot of areas require both parents to work to have good living standards, which wasn't the case before widespread dual incomes.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not convinced this is the real root cause, this is just a reasonable sounding theory that's easy to nod along to. Other countries don't follow this time pattern and have extra curricular activities and nonsense school hours all the same. As a single data point, where I'm from you usually have a gap after school so you can do your homework and then you do extra activities in the evening. Transportation is handled…

I agree, I think the culture around kids activity is not optimal in the US, and I think the primary culprit is weird urban planning. Schools are often located far away from population centers, and there is no walking and biking infrastructure for kids to get them selves there safely, so they have a massive amount of school buses to make up for that, and the whole schedule and culture is organized around limitation wi…

Do high schools in Europe start significantly later then in US? Germany, Czech and Poland starts at 8:00.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#454

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,…

I'd buy this if schools with virtually no sports teams had 9am or later start times. In Seattle there are private schools that could start whenver they want with virtually extra curriculars who also start at 8am. Additionally most sports teams don't have practice ending at 5pm. My sons basketball team didn't end until 6:30, because they have study hall for the athletes right after school. Your assertion just doesn't…

European high schools commonly start at 8. So, the idea that it is something specific to USA in opposition to other countries does not sound right.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#455
post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 America…

Speaking from Europe: after school is literally the most convenient time to practice for everyone involved too. And while sports are in non school clubs, some of them are indeed quite involved. Some are 3 times a week, others 1 time a week, but competitive ones are 4-5 times a week or more. By more I mean including weekend and sometimes morning practice. I know kids that have these amounts of sport now with dancing, soccer etc. I did swimming and we had 3 times a week morning practice back then.

I kinda feel like this is one of those situations where Americans think their system is exceptionally inferior ... in ways that are not actually that much dissimilar to what other countries do.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sellers aren't free to increase prices whenever they feel like it. Most of them are price takers.

Not sure what you mean exactly. It's already happened currently where a lot of areas require both parents to work to have good living standards, which wasn't the case before widespread dual incomes.

That's a coincidence. It's because the US realized they could drive up home values by banning new homes in the 60s and the effects took a while to create a housing shortage.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lived in a not-too-rural city in the Midwest of about 40,000 at the time, and we still didn’t have school busing for anyone in the city. It was only for rural folks. I was forced to get my drivers’ license at 16 to drive 10 min to school because the alternative was walking 1.2 hours every morning one way ti get to school… meaning leaving the house at around 6:00am. The city had no city bus, so there was zero public…

Bike not an option?

Most parts of the U.S. are not well designed for bikes or pedestrians, only cars. Also, many schools in the U.S. have really large districts, so some students live really far from the school.

In many places this would mean children would be required to bike on 55mph+ 5-lane roads with no shoulder and no bike lane for 5-20+ miles.

Nearly all public schools in the U.S. provide a free bus system for all students for this reason.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If.. uhh… society wasn’t so capitalistically expensive as to require the entire household’s adults to work, a lot of these logistical concerns would work out. Resulting in smarter and healthier children. But: smart and healthy children demand wages as adults that cut into shareholder profits…

No, when both parents work it means wages are high, that's all. When one parent doesn't work, it's because the marginal wage added wouldn't pay for childcare. In recessions one-parent households actually increase, because it's not caused by things being too expensive.

> pay for childcare > wages are high

Pay for…. That’s your clue. Prices are expensive because the owning class is squeezing every dime they can get.

You know… bog standard capitalism…

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bike not an option?

Most parts of the U.S. are not well designed for bikes or pedestrians, only cars. Also, many schools in the U.S. have really large districts, so some students live really far from the school. In many places this would mean children would be required to bike on 55mph+ 5-lane roads with no shoulder and no bike lane for 5-20+ miles. Nearly all public schools in the U.S. provide a free bus system for all students for thi…

This was me in elementary school. I went to a private school briefly where there wasn’t a bus and my mother had to work so I had to bike 20 miles to school through rush hour traffic at 11 years old.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#460
post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about? No a teenager is not 5. And five year olds don't get their own phone and internet access until 21:30.

Missing the point much?

Just trying to communicate clearly. It helps, when trying to get a point across. Try it.
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