Let Teenagers Sleep In
111–120 of 317 posts
Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In
#112> Anyone who talks about sleep as if it’s some kind of inconvenience and getting less of it is a virtue should be challenged. These people are dangerous. This statement was bizarrely totalitarian. I actually agree with the fundamental premise that many schools probably start too early. But to say those who take the other side are dangerous people who need to be challenged? Too far. Ironically, I think this Soviet-esq…
> Ironically, I think this Soviet-esque mentality that "people who disagree with idea X are dangerous" is dangerous! Every, single social media platform, political show, talk show, no matter the side.
Undisputed and lamentable. I just didn't see it coming in paragraph 2 of a NY Times editorial on teenage sleep habits.
Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In
#113> Anyone who talks about sleep as if it’s some kind of inconvenience and getting less of it is a virtue should be challenged. These people are dangerous. This statement was bizarrely totalitarian. I actually agree with the fundamental premise that many schools probably start too early. But to say those who take the other side are dangerous people who need to be challenged? Too far. Ironically, I think this Soviet-esq…
> Ironically, I think this Soviet-esque mentality that "people who disagree with idea X are dangerous" is dangerous! Every, single social media platform, political show, talk show, no matter the side.
As Vi Hart explains here[0], it's critical that you establish enemies for your followers if you wish them to crusade for you. Playful banter and "agreeing to disagree" don't cut it. You have to dehumanize them.
Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
What they meant is that we evolved in a way that made teenagers having shifted cycles, going to sleep later and waking up later. We're not living in tribes anymore, but evolution is slow and we still cary these biological traits. It therefore hurts teenagers to wake up as early as adults. The point here is not about leaving them more time to socialize in the evening.
Wouldn't accommodating them make evolution slower? Those that have traits making them able to wake up earlier should be "rewarded" if you want to bring change.
Our goal is not to control evolution, it is to let people exist within the biological constraints they have.
Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In
#115I wonder if it'd just be easier for high schools to convert over to a college model: students are free to pick courses corresponding to their preferred times, and to leave and enter campus on will. Of course, there will be incentives to consider -- why would a high schooler attend their classes if they're not paying directly out of pocket? In contrast, a school district would try to maximize the attendance rate as th…
A high school I attended had a fairly novel system that's not too far off from this. People in the program I was in would get to school at 8 and leave at 12, with a good deal of variety in what classes they chose to attend. And classes were run on a college schedule with two sets of classes - short MWF classes and longer TTh classes.
The overall affect of this is that good students would end up receiving a more directed education and were in a much more desirable system with immense freedom to pursue their education and growth as they saw fit. But at the same time 'less good' students did extremely poorly. And I think in general there is going to be a strong connection between increasing freedom and increasing the polarization of results. In a way it's really an educational analog of the differences between capitalism and communism.
Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In
#116My 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 an hour later. Or two :-)
Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In
#117One 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…
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.
We can also eat nothing but Twinkies for our entire life. We live in modern society. We can choose.
Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
You couldn't do much of anything at night with stone-age lighting technology. Sneaking around at night would be more likely to net you a tryst with a nearby tree branch or ditch than an exciting sexual encounter.
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 evers sleep cycle woke them up when ever.
This is a just so story. If we all had the same sleep patterns, you could just as well point out that there would also be advantages to that arrangement.
Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In
#119> Changing the operating hours of an institution so central to the community is far from easy. It requires strong leadership and adjustments by school bus companies and businesses offering services like child care and extracurricular clubs. Here's the elephant in the room. High schools start and end earlier with the idea that older kids can watch their siblings. I'd say a lack of public commitment to child care is al…
>Here's the elephant in the room. High schools start and end earlier with the idea that older kids can watch their siblings. I've always been under the impression that start times were staggered for transportation reasons, as you can't drop everyone off at the same time. My experiences are limited to small towns, so I could be way off, but the differences seemed too small for sibling care to be the motive
They are.
It's also not consistent in who starts first. I went to three school districts growing up: in two the elementary students started before the middle and high schoolers and in one the high school and middle school started first. It's pretty arbitrary who starts first.
Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Here's the elephant in the room. High schools start and end earlier with the idea that older kids can watch their siblings. I've always been under the impression that start times were staggered for transportation reasons, as you can't drop everyone off at the same time. My experiences are limited to small towns, so I could be way off, but the differences seemed too small for sibling care to be the motive
That means you have to do some kind of staggering. But the order is always older-younger, although younger kids are naturally awake earlier.
The order is not always older-younger. That has not been my experience.