Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Let Teenagers Sleep

scientificamerican.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

471–480 of 497 posts

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#471

Post by jacobsenscott »

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,…

In my school district elementary school starts first, around 8Am, then High School around 8:20, and finally middle school around 8:50. This is a fairly recent change, and result of these studies (high school used to start first). So some districts do try.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#472

Post by yterdy »

stonogo wrote: post #366
gnarbarian wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

GP doesn't have any idea what he's talking about; he's clearly just fallen for the right-wing propaganda that puts Baltimore at the center of American ills, a la Chicago. Baltimore's public transit is quite decent, between busses and light rail, and (particularly downtown) its identity as a colonial city makes it hell for driving - which, consequently, makes it that much more pleasant to walk/bike. It could become even better, now that we no longer have a certain gubernatorial impediment. The only thing he has close to correct is the safety issue, but it's not like the entire city is a warzone. Rather, it varies block-by-block, and even then, I caution againt exaggeration. Certain people feel accosted by the ever-present window washers, while I can't remember ever feeling unsafe the dozens of times I was set loose as a kid for school trips or visited for Otakon.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#473

Post by runarberg »

watwut wrote: post #453
runarberg wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In Iceland they start between 8:00 and 9:00 (and being on permanent DST this is actually worse in Iceland). So like my parent said, sports (and other kids culture) are not the reason for sleep depriving teenagers, they are merely an additional contributor.

I just felt the need to state the difference in culture here, where US kids activities are really tightly coupled with school activities. While in Europe a simple change in policy—often just on a school administration level—is needed, while in the USA, this is way more complicated.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#475

Post by uncletaco »

watwut wrote: post #455
uncletaco wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

Well that's just it I don't believe it's inferior. And most Americans will gey their kids into some kind of sport if they can afford it. As the saying goes: a good kid is a tired kid.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#476

Post by yurishimo »

ajmurmann wrote: post #426
Eisenstein wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume they are referring to lack of a safety net, though I don't know what in particular that has to do with volunteering to coach youth sports.

Less time to coach when you gotta grind

Also if you get injured playing sports, you could bankrupt your family. Maybe they have enough savings to cover the deductible for the year. Too bad Football is a winter sport and you could just as easily have hospital bills that cross over into the new year.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#477

Post by yurishimo »

cafard wrote: post #395
Symbiote wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'…

It depended on the season: touch football and soccer in the fall, basketball and wresting in the winter, softball and running in the spring. There would be also calisthenics--push-up, sit-ups, jumping jacks, occasionally burpees. And their would be drills such as "touchlines"--running on the basketball court. It has been fifty years, but I think that PE was twice a week. Class was about an hour.

At least when I was in high school in the early 10's, gym class was about 3 hours per week. We mostly stayed in the gym. This was Texas however. It could be up to 100 degrees until October. Running was not required. Sweating wasn't really required for an A+ as evidenced by some girls in the class. It was a checkbox for the state mandated requirements.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#478

Post by yurishimo »

burlesona wrote: post #42

My high school in Texas started at 9:05 am. Sample size of 1, but my experience was: (a) It still felt “early” to me at the time, but not “difficult” to be up for. (b) I don’t remember anyone complaining about school starting early or people being generally sleep deprived - if someone was exhausted in school we were all amused and curious what adventures they’d been having to stay out way too late. (c) I do recall th…

This was also my experience in Texas (DFW). Elementary school started and ended about 90 minutes before HS. This allowed the bus drivers to work from 2pm~ until 5pm.

I would have liked it to start a bit later, or at least ramp up with a homeroom for 30-45 minutes. When I started HS in 2008, we didn't have homeroom classes anymore. Some days I would start bright eyed and bushy tailed doing Calculus at 9am. Bleh.

I took some dual credit classes in my later years. I remember a few of them happened _before_ school started. Those sucked too, but they didn't cost me anything and I graduated with an associates degree so I can't complain too much.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#479

Post by jenadine »

jobs_throwaway wrote: post #22
jenadine wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not going to sleep earlier?

Because teens have a natural tendency to fall asleep later: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK222804/#:~:text=Resear... Sure, it is possible to have them go to bed earlier, but you're fighting biology

We are already fighting biology the whole time by waking up early. Why can't we fight biology for a week until the body adjusts?

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#480

Post by duringwork12 »

raincole wrote: post #200
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…

After reading all of these I still think it's "the bus routes", or more generally speaking, "the commuting". I grew up in an asian country and my parents never picked me up after I was 10. I just took buses from home to school and then from school to home. I'm not saying our system is better than the US, but it's a bit of culture shock that everyone commutes in their (parents') cars there.

I grew up in a part of the US and I think by second grade my older brother probably 10 was walking us all back to our grandparents house which was like 10 minutes from the school.

Never commuted on a car or took buses since there were none. Just my town had the houses near the schools. I know now is worse because a lot of the schools have been consolidated into megaschools so I'm assuming this generation drives a ton more.

Post reply on HN