Is School To Early For Students?
How is waking up early for school killing teens?
Starting School Later Will Help Inprove Teenagers Well-Being
Studies have shown that starting school later would help teenagers get more sleep. By starting school later students have more time to sleep, since most teenagers do not have enough melatonin in their bodies to fall asleep until 11 pm. On average 43% of public high schools start before 8 am. This means that students have to get up earlier to catch the bus and have to stand in the dark, which causes more accidents since they are not able to be seen in the dark. Students in sports with school that started later had increased athletic ability and improved overall. It also helped improve scores on tests. It also means that the 33% of students reported to fall asleep in school will lower down to about 1%.
Facts hat support this point;
-When schools have delayed the start of the school day, communities have seen reduced tardiness, sleeping in class, and car crash rates, as well as improved attendance, graduation rates, and standardized test scores(http://www.startschoollater.net/wake-up-calls-fast-facts.html)
-A report published by The Brookings Institution associated a significant increase in test scores with later middle and high school start times, with benefits roughly twice as great in disadvantaged students(http://www.startschoollater.net/wake-up-calls-fast-facts.html)
The Past
In the past people started the day at 9 am, but during the 1970s and '80s schools stared sooner so they could save money. It saved money by only having 3 bus cycles. Smaller schools started to catch on so that the matched bigger city's. By doing this parents had to send there children to before and after school care. They didn't think about what the long term effect would be when they did this, and didn't really have a lot of research on children and teenager's sleeping.
A hundred years ago most schools (and places of business) started the day around 9 a.m. In the 1970s and 1980s, however, many schools shifted to earlier hours. Back then the importance of sleep and the nature of the adolescent sleep shift wasn't understood, and the cost savings of running the fewest possible buses in three cycles was appealing.
Facts that support this point;
-Even schools that didn't run buses often found it helpful to move start times earlier so that after-school schedules coordinated with those of nearby schools. As a result, many students today are asked to go to school on a "morning shift" schedule, one that requires that they be in class much earlier than many of their parents and grandparents might have been. When public school times change, the whole community's rhythms change: "after" school stretches to four hours (and fills up with activities) or kids are unsupervised during the peak period for adolescent crime and risky behavior until the typical adult workday ends. (http://www.startschoollater.net/why-change.html)
The Biology Of Sleep, and What Not Getting Enough Sleep is Doing to Tweens and Teenagers
The recommended amount of sleep the average teenager needs in 9-10 hours. Most teenagers can not fall asleep until 10 of 11 pm due to their prepubescent bodies not giving them enough melatonin to fall asleep. By starting school earlier it messed with teenagers biological sleep cycle, and now in the morning we are zombies. (I mean that in a way is that we don't notice our surroundings and we don't respond to things as fast as we should.) This doesn't just apply to teens, in applies to you until you are 25 years old.
Facts that support this point;
-Insufficient sleep in teens is associated with obesity, migraines, and immune system disruption and with health risk behaviors including smoking, drinking, stimulant abuse, physical fighting, physical inactivity, depression, and suicidal tendencies(http://www.startschoollater.net/wake-up-calls-fast-facts.html)
-Tweens and teens are experiencing shifts in their natural sleep cycles. Their bodies’ inner “clocks” make it hard for them to go to bed before 10:30 or 11:00 p.m. But to get to school on time, they have to wake up as early as 5:30 a.m. A first school bell just after 8 a.m. slices into the 8.5 to 9.5 hours of sleep tweens and teens need to be healthy and perform at their best, she says. “We’re fighting biology.”(https://student.societyforscience.org/article/survey-finds-us-schools-start-too-early)
- First, daytime sleepiness can increase during adolescence, even when teens’ schedules allow for optimal amounts of sleep (Carskadon, Vieri, & Acebo, 1993). Second, most adolescents undergo a sleep phase delay, which means a tendency toward later times for both falling asleep and waking up. Research shows the typical adolescent’s natural time to fall asleep may be 11 pm or later; because of this change in their internal clocks, teens may feel wide awake at bedtime, even when they are exhausted (Wolfson & Carskadon, 1998). This leads to sleep deprivation in many teens who must wake up early for school, and thus do not get the 8 1/2 - 9 1/4 hours of sleep that they need. It also causes irregular sleep patterns that can hurt the quality of sleep, since the weekend sleep schedule often ends up being much different from the weekday schedule as teens try to catch up on lost sleep (Dahl & Carskadon, 1995). (https://sleepfoundation.org/sleep-news/backgrounder-later-school-start-times)
Conclusion
Teens Just Need Sleep
Citations
"Wake Up Calls (Fast Facts)." Start School Later. Web. 10 Dec. 2015.
"Why Change?" Start School Later. Web. 13 Dec. 2015.
"Survey Finds U.S. Schools Start 'too Early'" Student Science. Web. 13 Dec. 2015.
"About Me.♔." Pinterest. Web. 13 Dec. 2015. (Powerpuff Girls Picture)
"Girl GIF - Find & Share on GIPHY." GIPHY. Web. 13 Dec. 2015. (Sleeping anime Girl)
"Backgrounder: Later School Start Times." Later School Start Times: Benefits & Cons. Web. 13 Dec. 2015.
"Free Image on Pixabay - Animal, Fox, Sleep, Sleeping, Cute." Free Photo: Animal, Fox, Sleep, Sleeping, Cute. Web. 13 Dec. 2015. (Picture of Sleeping Fox)