No matter who you are, school consumes a massive portion of childhood. From morning to afternoon, students as young as 5 and as old as 18 are at school Monday-Friday. Whether you’re taking exams, sitting through lectures, or learning the alphabet, for most people, school starts early in the morning. Usually this means about 7-9 AM. But, the question is, is the daily start time of school too early?
Now, this opinion can vary depending on how refreshed a student feels in the morning and the start time of the particular school that they attend. Some prefer to stay up later (like myself), and end up feeling drowsy and unwilling to leave bed the next morning. Now, this might be entirely my fault, but, not only does it depend on bedtime, but also on general personality in my opinion; Some people just don’t like mornings. I see a lot of students consistently express exhaustion and unwillingness in relation to school, and this could be the fault of the start time. Getting up at 7-8 AM every day to attend classes can be very draining.
A lot of arguments surrounding school start time blame students for going to sleep too late on nights before school. In my opinion, solely blaming students for an issue that isn’t only their fault is dismissive of the problem as a whole. Not every middle and highschool student goes to bed at 9 or 10 PM every night for whatever reason there may be. So, instead of blaming students, the start time of school being made later is a much better solution. No more rushed mornings, less tardies, and allows a solution for every student no matter their sleep schedule.
NeaToday references a study in 2018—here is what they said. “A 2018 study that looked at two public schools in Seattle found that students’ sleep increased an average of 34 minutes each night after start times were moved nearly an hour later.” So, yes, a lot of schools start way too early. There's no reason that school should have to start at 7 or 8 am—we should normalize start times at around 9-10 am. If the end of the day needs to end a little later too, that’s not a huge deal. What's most important is that students feel as refreshed as possible for the many hours they spend in class.
https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/later-school-start-times-more-popular-what-are-drawbacks, NeaToday, Tim Walker, Dec 1 2022.
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I agree. school starts way to early. I go to bed at 9/10 PM almost every night and I still feel tired in the morning. I've also heard of this study that said students shouldn't really do anything before 11 AM.
ReplyDeleteI agree! As someone who is committed to a sport that takes up most of my time, it is hard for me to get a good sleep schedule. If school started at 9:30 I would be able to get the sleep I need to stay awake during school. Though I wouldnt really like getting out of school later...
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