Have you ever taken an international flight? Remember how you felt when you got to your destination and had to completely adjust your sleep schedule and internal clock just to feel normal? Remember how hard it was?
Metaphorically, high school students have to do that every single day.
In adolescence, the body and mind go through massive shifts. Executive functioning develops, a sense of identity begins to take shape, and of course, hormonal changes wreak physical and mental havoc.
Teenagers are stereotypically “lazy”; parents and teachers complain that we stay up til midnight and sleep til noon. This is inherently frustrating for us teens, because we can’t help it.
Everyone knows that teens don’t get enough sleep. Parents and other adults urge us to go to bed earlier. However, it is a medical fact that teenagers’ brains do not “shut down” until around 11:00 PM on average, and they do not fully “power back up” until around 8:30 or 9:00. This means that, even if we get in bed at eight, we’re left lying awake for hours on end, and then being forced back awake hours before our brains naturally want to. It’s not so much that we’re not getting enough sleep; it’s that we’re not getting the correct type of sleep that we need. And in the morning, and for the rest of the day, the result can feel very much like permanent jet lag.
For us at OPRF at least, this means that getting up in time to make it to school leaves us completely incapable of being fully ready for all the moving and thinking and transitioning we need to achieve success. (OPRF’s start time is already late by modern standards; the majority of high schools in America have their tardy bell ring at 7:45, or even - gasp - earlier.)
It is the opinion of many sleep and education professionals that in order to maintain mental and physical health, people between the ages of fourteen and eighteen need to start school no earlier than 8:30 AM.
A recent study showed that modern teenagers have the same levels of anxiety as insane asylum patients in the 1950’s. We are literally stressed to the point of madness, and it is only going to get worse. For us, pressure is coming in from all sides. Parents, teachers, college board officials, peers, and even ourselves, are constantly demanding perfection in every aspect of our lives. A teacher who assigns “only” an hour of homework a night rests easy in the thought that they have given their grateful students a favor, even a treat. But eight periods a day, minus lunch and perhaps PE, means six teachers each giving an hour of work each night. If students leave school at 3:00, make it home around 3:30, and start homework immediately upon getting indoors, they still won’t finish until 9:30 PM. And this is not even to mention extracurriculars, volunteer work, eating, music lessons… etc. Many teens also have actual jobs. Also thrown by the wayside is social involvement and interaction with peers - which is actually crucial to the development of our young brains.
Among American teens, depression, chronic anxiety, obsessive-compulsive tendencies, and other mental disorders caused or exacerbated by stress are rampant. On top of this, not getting correct sleep leads to grades and responsibilities slipping, which mounts the stress and pressure, which means sleep is cut back and the whole exhausting cycle rolls around again. Conversely, schools in the US who pushed their start times back saw increase in student performance and overall happiness. 201 Rhode Island students participated in a study that pushed their school start time back from 8:00 to 8:30. Immediately after the change was implemented, the number of students who got more than 8 hours of sleep per night jumped from 16% to 55%. Fewer kids skipped class, fewer kids went to the nurse for fatigue-related complaints, and fewer students reported feelings of unhappiness, annoyance or irritation.
It turns out, shockingly it seems, that kids who are allowed to keep their brain and body functioning at the most basic level are kids who do better in school. Who would’ve guessed?
I totally agree with you, and you op-ed was well put-together and easy to understand. Nicejob! I also read some where that some districts in the country where actually going to use this idea of starting later into consideration. I think some schools already did. So hopfully more will, but looks like for us we are going to have to stuggle through it for another two years.
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ReplyDeleteI agree with everything you wrote (and liked the slight tone of sarcasm)! Coming from someone who barely gets six hours a night, I totally support the idea of school starting later. I don't see how schools expect us to do everything we need to get gone and still get 8-9 hours of sleep. And your statement comparing our anxiety levels to those of an insane asylum are (no pun intended) crazy!!
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