During High School Lecture teacher asked bored looking students to repeat what was just said! (career, demand)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
In college, if you don't want to take classes until noon, you don't take classes until noon. No one makes you go to class at 7:30 AM every single day. If you really dislike getting up earlyl, you take a job where you work 9:00 to 5:00. Beyond high school, we actually have some options WRT what time we get up. Thinking that 7:30 is too early to start school is not excusing behavior. It's just recognizing that teenagers are on a different circadian rhythm than adults.
In most the real world, you get up at whatever time is necessary to get the job done.
I'm an adult, and I still don't like to get up early in the morning. I like to sleep in on the weekends. Some nights I don't sleep well and I could really go for an extra two or three hours of sleep when the alarm goes of. Do I get a free pass if I show up to the office and sleep through the presentation I was supposed to give to the CFO?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ivorytickler
I'm not excusing their behavior. I'm explaining it. Unfortunately, circadian rhythm or not, they have to deal with school starting at 7:30. Whether this is the best time to learn or not is irrelevent until the start time is changed. I think it should be. I'd love to see high school start at 9:00 AM and go until 4:00 PM. Maybe I'm wrong but I'd like to try it. I think our kids would get more sleep and I think well rested students would be eaiser to teach.
Fine by me. But I have a sneaking suspicion that even if high school started at 9am and went to 4pm, students would still happily take advantage of American teachers who let them get away with anything and everything. And American teachers would still desperately cling to some pseudo-scientific explanation for it so that nobody is "blamed" (we'd hate to harm that fragile self esteem, right?). I know your modus operandi quite well.
Meanwhile, in other parts of the world, excuses are not a major part of the cirriculum and students surpass this country by a significant margin. Riddle me that...
I have to defend Ivory here, she doesn't usually accept student excuses. She is correct on some studies over the last decade supporting adolescents having a circadian rhythm change about the time the hormones start kicking in. Enough so that the Alexandria City School District in VA changed it's HS start times to 9:00 a few years ago. Apparently, according to the District, it has cut down on tardies and performance has ticked up. I think there may be too many other variables to support the last, by the way.
Montgomery County, MD has looked at changing start times but abandoned it when transportation costs would have gone up by a lot. They have enough high schools that they start on a staggered schedule, as does my system.
You're also correct when you say that kids will drag in late no matter what time school starts, hell we have teachers and administrators at my school that are late every day, and not just by a few minutes but by hours.
I couldn't disagree more. The professors I learned the most from, in college, lectured all the time during lecture periods. I wish I could go back and hear two of them lecture again. The sad part is I recorded their lectures and dh threw out my tapes figuring I'd never need them again. Sigh.
Unfortunately, at the high school level, some of my students have the attention span of a gnat. They learn in snippets. I work on that, because that won't get them through college, but I have to plan my lecures around that as well. I don't do sound bytes but I do do short sections. I lecture, help them visualize/do a demo, model and then help them practice all in about 10 minutes for each segment. My lecture may be 45 minutes long but it's really 5 mini lessons. Though you can't seem to tell that to my students .
Seriously, I find I have to present things three ways for them to get it. It goes much better if they read BEFORE I lecture but too many of them don't do the reading. Maybe I need to resort to reading quizzes. I hate to do that though because so many students don't learn well by reading but the reading is important to the learning process.
In most the real world, you get up at whatever time is necessary to get the job done.
I'm an adult, and I still don't like to get up early in the morning. I like to sleep in on the weekends. Some nights I don't sleep well and I could really go for an extra two or three hours of sleep when the alarm goes of. Do I get a free pass if I show up to the office and sleep through the presentation I was supposed to give to the CFO?
Fine by me. But I have a sneaking suspicion that even if high school started at 9am and went to 4pm, students would still happily take advantage of American teachers who let them get away with anything and everything. And American teachers would still desperately cling to some pseudo-scientific explanation for it so that nobody is "blamed" (we'd hate to harm that fragile self esteem, right?). I know your modus operandi quite well.
Meanwhile, in other parts of the world, excuses are not a major part of the cirriculum and students surpass this country by a significant margin. Riddle me that...
Yes, and different jobs have different starting times.
I'm not clinging to some psuedo-scientific explanation. This is documented. Studies have shown that when school start times are delayed, teens get more sleep. What hasn't been shown is whether or not this would actually prevent them from sleeping in class . Personally, I think trading more sleep time for teens for some of those unsupervised hours in the afternoon would be a good thing. Might not help grades but I think it would help overall and it might help grades. I think it's worth a shot. I think we should try it before we declare it worthless. Seriously, why does school need to start at 7:30 AM? Why do teens need to get out at 2:30?
I do think teens are fighting biology and they aren't known for making the best decisions so I wouldn't expect them to act like an adult and suck it up. If they forced themselves to go to bed at 8:00 every night, they might get used to it in the same way someone who works midnights gets used to sleeping during the day but I've done that and it sucks even when you're used to it.
At least, with jobs, there's the motivation of wanting to keep the job. I don't think most teens want to go to school. In fact, I'm pretty sure most would rather not so getting enough rest for school isn't high on their list.
I have to defend Ivory here, she doesn't usually accept student excuses. She is correct on some studies over the last decade supporting adolescents having a circadian rhythm change about the time the hormones start kicking in. Enough so that the Alexandria City School District in VA changed it's HS start times to 9:00 a few years ago. Apparently, according to the District, it has cut down on tardies and performance has ticked up. I think there may be too many other variables to support the last, by the way.
Montgomery County, MD has looked at changing start times but abandoned it when transportation costs would have gone up by a lot. They have enough high schools that they start on a staggered schedule, as does my system.
You're also correct when you say that kids will drag in late no matter what time school starts, hell we have teachers and administrators at my school that are late every day, and not just by a few minutes but by hours.
I'll tell you this. My daughter is easier to get up at 8:00 than she is at 6:00. I'd love to see a 9:00 start time for school. Fortunately, her dad is here to kick her in the butt and make sure she gets to school but I know what she's like those first couple of hours and I don't envy the teachers who have her early in the day.
One problem with teens is they'll sleep in on the weekend and all that does is mess up their routine. They don't realize it. Teens live in the here and now. If they want to sleep now and can, they will. Adults have enough sense to realize that sleeping in until 9:00 on Saturday just means it's going to be that much tougher to get up on Monday. While I do go to bed later on the weekends, I still get up when the alarm goes off. For me, wake time has to be wake time. It takes me weeks to get back into a pattern if I let myself get out of one.
I'm not clinging to some psuedo-scientific explanation. This is documented. Studies have shown that when school start times are delayed, teens get more sleep. What hasn't been shown is whether or not this would actually prevent them from sleeping in class . Personally, I think trading more sleep time for teens for some of those unsupervised hours in the afternoon would be a good thing. Might not help grades but I think it would help overall and it might help grades. I think it's worth a shot. I think we should try it before we declare it worthless. Seriously, why does school need to start at 7:30 AM? Why do teens need to get out at 2:30?
I do think teens are fighting biology and they aren't known for making the best decisions so I wouldn't expect them to act like an adult and suck it up. If they forced themselves to go to bed at 8:00 every night, they might get used to it in the same way someone who works midnights gets used to sleeping during the day but I've done that and it sucks even when you're used to it.
At least, with jobs, there's the motivation of wanting to keep the job. I don't think most teens want to go to school. In fact, I'm pretty sure most would rather not so getting enough rest for school isn't high on their list.
So let's just make life easier for teens.
Those 'studies' you cite are bogus. They exist because someone decided that they had to manufacture an excuse why teens don't like getting up in the morning.
You, yourself stated that you can change your inner clock, and if you went to bed earlier, you could get out of bed earlier.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ivorytickler
I'll tell you this. My daughter is easier to get up at 8:00 than she is at 6:00. I'd love to see a 9:00 start time for school. Fortunately, her dad is here to kick her in the butt and make sure she gets to school but I know what she's like those first couple of hours and I don't envy the teachers who have her early in the day.
One problem with teens is they'll sleep in on the weekend and all that does is mess up their routine. They don't realize it. Teens live in the here and now. If they want to sleep now and can, they will. Adults have enough sense to realize that sleeping in until 9:00 on Saturday just means it's going to be that much tougher to get up on Monday. While I do go to bed later on the weekends, I still get up when the alarm goes off. For me, wake time has to be wake time. It takes me weeks to get back into a pattern if I let myself get out of one.
I find it easier to get up at 8 than 6 as well. Maybe my life should revolve around when I wish to get out of bed.
You are contradicting yourself. Either it's impossible, or possible, you can't have it both ways.
Those 'studies' you cite are bogus. They exist because someone decided that they had to manufacture an excuse why teens don't like getting up in the morning.
You, yourself stated that you can change your inner clock, and if you went to bed earlier, you could get out of bed earlier.
I find it easier to get up at 8 than 6 as well. Maybe my life should revolve around when I wish to get out of bed.
You are contradicting yourself. Either it's impossible, or possible, you can't have it both ways.
Care to cite your source for calling the studies on teens and sleep schedules bogus? These are peer reviewed studies. There appears to be a natural shift in sleep time during the teen years.
We are adults. They are teens (still children). Even if nothing changed from the teen years. If adults had the same issue with circadian rhythm, we have had something they have not had and that's years and years of practice. I have likened it to getting used to sleeping when you work midnights. Anyone who has done it will tell you that you have to keep the same sleep schedule but you never really get used to it. Regardless of how much sleep you get, you're still tired at 3:00 AM because you are firghting your natural sleep cycle. Research says so are teens.
The question isn't whether or not we should cater to them but rather should we jeopardize their educations by not taking into account that they are dealing with a different circadian rhythm. Couple this with the fact that teens tend to be short sighted and impulsive (not seeing the consequences, partly because they haven't lived enough of them) and you have a prescription that is not conducive to educating teens. Most teens don't like school anyway. They see it as something forced upon them. Now we're going to force them to go to school tired? How does this solve anything?
We are tasked with trying to give teens the best education possible in spite of them not liking school, not wanting to be in school and being tired all the time. We can improve one of these and we just might improve the other two if we did.
As I said, colleges accomodate whatever schedule you want. Why are we so rigid WRT high school start times?
Given the fact most teens don't want to go to school, it makes way more sense to schedule school on their time. Maybe more of them would go. Maybe fewer of them would drop out. Maybe they might be awake enough to hear what I say. I don't know if it would work but I think there's enough evidence to give it a try.
No, I can have it both ways. Circadian rhythm and your normal sleep routine are two different things. I worked midnights years ago. I fought my circadian rhythm every day. If I had changed my sleep pattern (when I forced myself to go to bed and get up) on days I didn't work, I would have played heck getting back into a sleep pattern I could live with BECAUSE I was fighting my circadian rhythm. If teens are fighting theirs, as the research says, they can't afford to deviate in their sleep patterns because, they'll quickly drop back to what is normal for them just like I did when I stopped working midnights. I did not have to learn to sleep through the night again because it was natural to sleep through the night. What I had been doing was what was unnatural and yes, I had to keep the same pattern day in and day out even on days off lest I default back to what is natural to me. Just like teens need to do but, unfortunately, don't because they're teens.
Last edited by Ivorytickler; 07-05-2010 at 02:51 PM..
I think part of being a good teacher is being able to keep the student's attention. I had some teachers in high school I paid attention to but other teachers that I tuned out. Normally I didn't try to tune them out but it just naturally happened. Sometimes I would tune them out if I already understood what was being taught, but that's a different story. The fact that some teachers kept my attention and others didn't shows that the problem is not with me, it's with the teacher.
Example: I had a teacher that told stories instead of teaching. Students tuned him out and they weren't missing out on any learning since he didn't teach.
I think part of being a good teacher is being able to keep the student's attention. I had some teachers in high school I paid attention to but other teachers that I tuned out. Normally I didn't try to tune them out but it just naturally happened. Sometimes I would tune them out if I already understood what was being taught, but that's a different story. The fact that some teachers kept my attention and others didn't shows that the problem is not with me, it's with the teacher.
I find that keeping student's attention is easier as the day progresses. 1st hour is quiet. Very little feedback from students. They're still groggy. 2nd hour was aggitated. They were waking up but really didn't want to be there. 3rd - 6th went just fine. I also find that the average grade in my classes goes up by hour. 5th and 6th hours have the highest averages.
Maybe we need an exercise hour when kids get to school, lol. Wake them up and get them moving before they enter the classroom.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
.
