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The problem is the modern world.In the past you had a candle to light the house not fun and nothing to do so people go to bed.Now with lights and electrons and stuff people stay up to 1AM than have hard time getting up at 8:00 AM.
What to we do pass laws that all work places and schools start at 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM or 7:00 PM. No wonder we wreck evolution. The idea is world is to start when the sun comes out and the world stops when sun goes down and people go to bed.
Recent research indicates that most people -- in the days before electricity -- farmers and such went to bed early, yes. But they woke up around midnight to tend the animals, and the wives woke up to prepare a meal. They might stay up for an hour or so and then go back to bed. As they mostly lived in one room, that meant everyone woke up. I believe it. My husband goes to bed early (9 pm) but wakes up for two hours most nights and has done for the past 30 years.
Then there are those of us who are true night-owls. Research indicates that our ancestors were probably night-guards for the camps, even to the point where our fellow nomads would carry us during the day so we'd get enough sleep!
My son must have been an anomaly. He preferred getting up early so that he had more time later to do other things. School started at 7:20 ish. His Jr and Sr year he would pick the earlier classes so he could be sone by noon or 1pm for the day.
Even now in college he will pick the earlier classes.
Europe works 4 to 8 hours. Where Americans pride then self on workaholics of working the 10 to 12 hours and some jobs like IT jobs 16 hours.
No wonder Americans are the most medicated in the world on sleeping pills ,stimulants to say awake ,antidepressants and anxiety medications.
If you tell people you working 4 hours in the US they think you very lazy. Well tell people you working 8 hours not bad. And tell people 10 to 12 hours you not lazy person.
All these sleep disorders seem to be popping up with are modern world and 10 to 12 hours. And we adults work 10 to 12 hours so why not are kids and teens. We are very lucky to get 6 hours sleep so why should kids and teens complain.
Too the electrical power companies shut the power of at 9:00 PM forcing people to bed and the government ban all 10 to 12 hours work shifts or more !! The US will be a a very mess up country.
4-8 hours my foot! My spouse has a co-worker from France, and I asked him about the French system. His response was "it's pretty much like here, just some different days off".
France has a 35 hr. work week: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_time
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Originally Posted by Fancy-Schmancy
Recent research indicates that most people -- in the days before electricity -- farmers and such went to bed early, yes. But they woke up around midnight to tend the animals, and the wives woke up to prepare a meal. They might stay up for an hour or so and then go back to bed. As they mostly lived in one room, that meant everyone woke up. I believe it. My husband goes to bed early (9 pm) but wakes up for two hours most nights and has done for the past 30 years.
Then there are those of us who are true night-owls. Research indicates that our ancestors were probably night-guards for the camps, even to the point where our fellow nomads would carry us during the day so we'd get enough sleep!
The above is not the way I heard it from any of my relatives who farmed, nor did I see that in any of my friends who lived on farms back in Illinois.
Last edited by Katarina Witt; 09-02-2014 at 08:48 AM..
I wasn't and never have been a morning person. I have a hard time getting up before 8 AM and rarely tire out before 12 AM, even though I've been working days for well over a year now (was second shift for three years).
I remember being in school and my mother getting me up at 6 AM. I'd just fall back asleep after taking a shower until the absolute latest time I could throw clothes on and get on the bus. I don't think most people function well at all at intensive tasks before 8 AM.
Let me see if I have this right. As long as someone has it worse than me I have no right to suggest that things could be improved for me? Coal miners have nothing to do with school starting times either.
We don't expect everyone to mine coal, but we do expect everyone to be schooled. 96% of students, a rapidly shrinking yet still vast majority, go to some kind of a school. How many adults mine coal in a coal mine? They don't constitute a majority even in coal country, and in most places no one mines coal.
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THIS is a discussion about how schools could be made better. Someone said that the reason the day starts early is that TEACHERS want to get off early. I countered with I'm a teacher and I'd prefer a later start and stated why. I happen to teach in a windowless room and that means I don't see the sun during the winter months. All of the teachers in windowless rooms are in the same boat and we all seem to have the same complaint. It's hard to sync our clocks in the winter.
There is extremely strong scientific evidence that nature (including natural light) and green space are good for people, and even just being able to look at green space and nature is quite beneficial to health, performance, and learning. People have always liked windows and views, from the intuitive sense that windowless rooms were bad to live in to coveting window seats on plane and bus rides, so whoever designed your school was either a nut or just didn't care. In my experience architecture is one of the largest components of the hidden curriculum and is certainly the least studied.
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My building happens to have an internal corridor where there are no external windows in the rooms. There are some benefits to this as the classrooms that have windows come into our classrooms during tornado drills. My room is one of the safest in the building with 4 cinder block walls but I don't get daylight.
That's what safe rooms and basements are for, but of course that would require whoever designs these schools to care about what they're doing and not cut corners. It would also cost more, although I can't imagine that it would be more than a small fraction of the extra money put into administrative bloat over the past 40 years. The primary goal in this area should be enabling students to learn well and be comfortable to the greatest extent possible, using or trying any means conceivable within long-term funding limits. The typical American school seems to have architecture and furnishings one would design to promote discomfort, poor health, and poor learning, fit more for prisoners than students.
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Originally Posted by hillcountryheart
Do you know that I still can't get out of bed easily or regularly at 7.00 am and yet somehow, 30 years past being a teen, I have "made it in society"? And damn straight I work, and have a family.
Indeed. What many don't seem to realize is that plenty of workers do not rise at 6:00 or 7:00 to go to work. Banks traditionally opened at 10:00, malls even now rarely open before 9:00, and many people work evening shifts where they don't even show up until well after lunch. Night owls and evening people fill many niches that early birds would do poorly in, and vice versa; those in the labor market understand this for a population that needs accomodation less than the school-aged do. Indeed they may accomodate it too well, considering that nearly every major social activity or gathering in our society takes place in afternoon or evening, well past the time early birds have had it. Even if early birds were in control they would schedule gatherings and activities at 8:00 or 9:00, not 6:00 or 7:00; 6:00 and 7:00 is when they'd like to start their day and do things that need to be done at home.
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Originally Posted by sweat209
The problem is the modern world.In the past you had a candle to light the house not fun and nothing to do so people go to bed.
People went to bed early primarily because they had two sleeps in earlier times; they went to bed around sunset, they woke up in the middle of the night for an hour or two to read or do some other things, went back to bed, and woke up around sunrise. People in a more natural environment revert to that schedule within a few months, suggesting that it is the default sleep pattern for most humans. They probably spent about as much time up at night as a non-sleep-deprived person does today, but they didn't do it before they went to bed.
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What to we do pass laws that all work places and schools start at 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM or 7:00 PM. No wonder we wreck evolution. The idea is world is to start when the sun comes out and the world stops when sun goes down and people go to bed.
When the sun sets at 18:00 or 19:00 sunrise occurs long before 10:00. Days are (supposed to be) centered on noon, so an eight hour day by the sun should be 8:00-16:00, not 10:00-18:00 (that's centered on 2 PM!). Of course it's usually not quite that simple. The edges of standard meridian-based time zones have noon as early as 11:30 or as late as 12:30 - 12:00 is close enough to that, but daylight saving time shifts noon an hour later, making 12:30-13:30 the center of daylight hours. On top of that most time zones spill over their western boundaries producing even later noontimes at the western edges. What all this means is that scheduling days by the sun will vary by location. Noon at Terre Haute is almost as late as 2 PM most of the year, whereas in eastern Maine in winter noon occurs at 11:30 AM. So eastern Maine should work from 7:30 to 3:30 and Terre Haute should do as you suggest and work from 10:00 to 6:00.
It makes President Harding's proposal to shift work hours an hour earlier in the summer in lieu of DST seem downright simple . At any rate 12:00 for standard time and 13:00 for daylight time is a good enough approximation in most places.
Because research on the role of melatonin indicates that teenagers experience a shift in the secretion schedule of this hormone that changes their sleep patterns. They are naturally more wakeful at night, so it becomes very difficult for them to fall asleep earlier. Furthermore, it does seem as if schools are starting earlier than ever. My home room started at 7:55, but my kids are at their desks at 7:00, and they don't get home any earlier than I did. That is one looooong day, and they still have at least a couple of hours of studying to do.
So, I'm thinking the next government agenda will be to build hotels on public school property and have them sleep and eat at the schools all on the name of making them more healthy.
It probably city does not want to build more schools and get more buses on the road.So in you area schools are very big and full size bus with every seat full.
Really buses showing up to school 30% to 60% full is not efficient use of taxpayers money.I think small buses is very not efficient use of taxpayers money.
Not quite. My suburb has grown very rapidly. They are building new schools as fast as they can, but they cannot keep up.
My son must have been an anomaly. He preferred getting up early so that he had more time later to do other things. School started at 7:20 ish. His Jr and Sr year he would pick the earlier classes so he could be sone by noon or 1pm for the day.
Even now in college he will pick the earlier classes.
It is simply another perspective. Every teen is not struggling to get to school early. Just as with adults, some people are morning people and some are not. There are kids who would struggle to maintain focus in the afternoon. It seems to me the issue is amount of sleep not when that sleep occurs.
I was not aware that differing thoughts were unwelcome.
People who argue AGAINST later start times are delusional and/or apathetic (of the needs of students). Simple as that.
I agree 100%.
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Coal miners have nothing to do with school starting times either. 
. At any rate 12:00 for standard time and 13:00 for daylight time is a good enough approximation in most places.
