This discussion is so old. Everybody knows that class schedules begin too early for kids. It's the teachers that keep later schedules from happening because they want their free time afterwards.
Poor Grades Tied to Class Times That Don’t Match Our Biological Clocks
431–440 of 458 posts
Re: Poor Grades Tied to Class Times That Don’t Match Our Biological Clocks
#432Earlier quoted context omitted.
I did too, but I always assumed that if school started an hour later I'd go to bed an hour later and still struggle to get up. Why do you think it would be different?
Did you ever try? I can't tell you why but me and many other people seem to have a biological clock that is out of sync with our societies expections. For whatever reason I simply am more energetic and happy if I sleep until noon. Even if that means sleeping 12 hours, instead of 8 or so.
I did try living by my own biological clock and it was a complete disaster. Ruined my life for several years. My natural clock is non-24, but not by much, no more than 25 hours. So if left to my own devices I naturally drift "West" every single day. The only way I can cope is to take strict control of my wake up times and force myself into a 24 hour cycle.
The phase is irrelevant to me. So if I'm going to take control I get up earlier because I find that is more productive for me. I hate every single morning of my life, but if I let my clock do what it wants I hate my entire life.
Re: Poor Grades Tied to Class Times That Don’t Match Our Biological Clocks
#433Earlier quoted context omitted.
So they have a hard time getting to sleep on time - but it is because of behavior patterns. If it were due to maladaptive body clock regulation there would be evidence of poor adaptation when traveling to different time zones. If it were due to melatonin dysfunction there would be some wild swings in affected populations between summer and winter periods. Instead this is fully explained by routines. Just ask the coll…
This is so idiotic. The argument is not about how to wake up on time, the point being made is that you are not as attentive when your circadian rhythm is misaligned with tasks that require a high degree of attention.
What is so idiotic is the concept of a natural circadian rhythm that is being claimed out of correlation studies of social cohorts, when there is no fundamental hypothesis to support the idea that young/old people have innately different rhythms.
I agree with you that people do not perform when their rhythms are not in sync with their lives’ demands. However commenters and the article writers are inferring there is some inherent trait that prevents their body clock from adapting.
Re: Poor Grades Tied to Class Times That Don’t Match Our Biological Clocks
#434This is nothing new. The problem is that it won't change - many people, when asked about education, seem to be of the opinion that if they could endure the hardships in their youth (getting up way too early, walking sometimes one to two hours to school, cruel teachers, corporal punishment - yes this is a thing, even in the USA it's still legal in many places -, "physical education" aka "survival of the fittest") then their children should suffer the same fate.
In addition (though this is Germany-specific) the "elite" of society (which were in the Gymnasium and send their kids there too) will resist fiercely any movement to a more equal system which does not separate children onto fixed tracks so that their privileges are not being cut (or watered down, when it comes to laxer admission criteria for Gymnasien).
Parents, especially concerned and wealthy ones, are a powerful group of voters. Ideally education should be taken away from political influence entirely and given into the hands of actual experts...
Re: Poor Grades Tied to Class Times That Don’t Match Our Biological Clocks
#435Is there some other correlation between owls and being owls that's excluded from this study? Do they tend to use drugs or alcohol more? Do they tend to date more? Do they tend to watch more television? Play video games more late at night?
This is an interesting study that doesn't necessarily suggest later class times will fix the issue but this could be a bit of a "wicked problem" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_problem
Re: Poor Grades Tied to Class Times That Don’t Match Our Biological Clocks
#436I used to have lots of problems getting up early and always championed later times. Growing up through my twenties, it was great seeing finally seeing more and more evidence for a later school start and I was hopeful for future teens. But it wasn't until my first kid that I finally understood that school doesn't start this early because it's good for the learning experience. It starts this early so parents can get th…
My kids' elementary school doesn't start until 9:00, and both of us work. We've had to get morning childcare just for 30 minutes before school. It's expensive and stressful for all of us.
Do you work in IT like most people on HN? I though most tech companies were flexible about work hours.
Re: Poor Grades Tied to Class Times That Don’t Match Our Biological Clocks
#437Earlier quoted context omitted.
The actual problem began when humans invented candles and lightbulbs and started staying up past 8pm, and going to bed at inconsistent hours, therefore waking up tired the next mornings. Our optimal sleeping time is based on the rotation of earth around the sun. We have removed our brain's natural sleep trigger (lack of light) so our sleep habits have been getting out of whack for the last couple of hundred years.
What is really interesting is that human's natural sleep cycle is not to sleep continuously for 8 hours. Our natural sleep cycle is to go to bed when it gets dark and then to wake up for a few hours in the middle of the night and get up and do things (apparently this is also the time when most sex happened since other family members in the same room were still asleep) and then go back to sleep and get back up at dawn…
For those landing on this comment, some reference: http://slumberwise.com/science/your-ancestors-didnt-sleep-li...
Re: Poor Grades Tied to Class Times That Don’t Match Our Biological Clocks
#438Earlier quoted context omitted.
Kids under 18 used to be valued as factory workers. Our society decided humans become more valuable when they are given the opportunity of a childhood filled with education instead of manual labor.
That's a nice way of looking at it, and I'm not going to argue against it per se, but a cynical part of me thinks there's simply more money to be made by pushing loans on young adults and then using them in the workforce. US student loan debt is somewhere around $1.4 trillion. For comparison, mortgage debt is somewhere around $8.9 trillion. That's a pretty damn big market. [0][1] If that education was free, I'd wholl…
This applies to young adults; not children. You're not wrong, but you are slightly off topic.
Re: Poor Grades Tied to Class Times That Don’t Match Our Biological Clocks
#439Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem with that is rotating schedules is more economically efficient than loading all the class-types onto one time of the day. This would mean you need more PE teachers in the morning, more math teachers in the mid-day. There's a reason schools have multiple periods of each course, and that those periods rotate day-to-day. One interesting follow-up study could be to compare night-owls/morning-larks in rotating…
The actual problem began when humans invented candles and lightbulbs and started staying up past 8pm, and going to bed at inconsistent hours, therefore waking up tired the next mornings. Our optimal sleeping time is based on the rotation of earth around the sun. We have removed our brain's natural sleep trigger (lack of light) so our sleep habits have been getting out of whack for the last couple of hundred years.
For the most part i agree, but how about summer times in the northern regions in US or the world when sun doesnt set until beyond 9pm or say Norway where it can be until midnight or more than 60 days in some areas?
Re: Poor Grades Tied to Class Times That Don’t Match Our Biological Clocks
#440I disagree with ideas that school schedules should shift later. I am a night owl myself, but our "natural" sleep cycle certainly more or less falls in line with school times. We have fully disrupted our circadian rhythms with our lifestyles and especially screens/lights at night. Before artificial light, our sleep/wake schedule was set by the sun. I know we live in a different world today, but I feel like shifting ou…
Do you have any evidence to support those claims, specifically that night owl's "natural" sleep cycle falls in line with school times? There is substantial biological evidence that phenotypes for night owls vs. morning larks do actually exist. Are you suggesting it is "natural" for a night owl to be focused at 8am, which is around the average start time for the earliest classes in our education system?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the study itself didn't look near this rigorous. It looks like they made 3 buckets and tried to correlate them with performance. How can you do that and they say "aha! look! circadian rhythms"?
How do we know that the students who stayed up late aren't also the students that procrastinate and do all their work last minute, and thus recieve lower grades?
That seems like just as reasonable a conclusion to draw.