It is your senor year in high school and you
are loaded with homework. Every single day you have homework in Math, English,
History, Spanish, Science, and more. Whenever you come home, you realize that
you will have another sleepless night trying to finish all the homework. Even
after putting so much time and effort into studying, you still manage to do badly
on your quizzes and tests. Plus, you keep trying to not fall asleep in the
middle of class! You have tried to negotiate with your teachers to lower the
work load each night, but all they say is, “This is the college life! We are
preparing you for the future! If you cannot handle this easy homework, then you
will fail in college!” or something along those lines. Then, after a long day
at school, the cycle repeats itself.
This kind of
problem seems to be occurring throughout high school and college. Most students
are worried about their grades and try to finish all the homework at night,
which makes them have very few hours of sleep. Despite the effort, these same
students still get bad grades in their classes. More and more research studies
show that daytime sleepiness has a large impact on academic success as well as
concentration, attention, and mood. Depending on your sleep habits can change
your day and grades. According to Michael J. Breus, who is a clinical
psychologist and specializes in sleep disorders, students who average C’s, D’s,
and F’s sleep on average 40 minutes less than students who earn A’s and B’s. He
also states insufficient sleep leads to daytime fatigue, ADHD, and a tendency
to doze off in class. Therefore students who sleep more, have earlier bed
times, and later weekday rise time have higher grades whereas students who
sleepless and go to bed later tend to have lower grades. Imagine if school
started an hour or two later. It would be beneficial to everyone! From the
studies above, students would therefore naturally get higher grades than they
were before.
In college, the same problem is arising. Some
students made remarks that it is normal to stay up all night to finish a paper
or study for an exam. However, in college, work load is not the only reason
students are having trouble sleeping. With new independence, constant social
lives, visitors passing by the rooms, and more distractions, it is very difficult
for students to sleep. Early morning classes do not help the case either.
According to the Washington Times, James Maas the guru of college sleep has
found a solution. Mr. Maas was able to speak at Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts
in 2007 and convinced the school to start classes back from 7:55 to 8:30 and
asked to cut sports practices and homework expectations ten percent each. The
results of this change were a decline of student visits to the health center,
seventeen percent more students taking time for a hot breakfast, and an overall
increase in GPA. Sports teams also saw good years even with this change.
So many great
things can come about in our society from a small change in time. With an
increase in sleep, students in college and in high school will have higher performance
in both grades and sports. The big question is why has this change not occurred
throughout the nation? A reason is because of age. Children of younger age,
like kindergarteners, tend to wake up very early in the morning and are very
active. So for schools that have High school and lower/middle school combined,
the change cannot occur. However, according to the Baltimore Post Examiner,
students need to learn how to deal with early mornings since many jobs start around
the same time as school starts. The main argument is schools are trying to
prepare students for the real world and the work environment students will have
in the future.
What if school
start time was pushed back though? Take a look back when you were a senor. If
schools took a similar approach to what Mr. Maas was suggesting, student life
would not be so difficult. The homework load would be smaller than it was
before the change, problems focusing in class, either from lack of concentration
or fatigue, would decrease, and grades would go up. Life would also be easier
for teachers because they will not have to waste precious teaching time to wake
a student up who were sleeping in their class. Plus, teachers would not have to
explain why so many students are doing poorly. Overall, many people see the
huge benefits of having schools start later, but there are still some who
believe earlier starting times create a maximum teaching opportunity. Due to
the difference in ideas, most schools are at a standstill on this topic and
therefore no change has come about.
Works Cited :
- Breus, Michael J. "Back to School, Back to Sleep." WebMD. MERCK, 2 Sept. 2004. Web. 22 Sept. 2013. <http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/features/fixing-sleep-problems-may-improve-childs-grades-and-behavior>
- Flanagan, Jason. "Do schools really need to start early? How about Parenting 101 classes instead?." Baltimore Post Examiner. N.p., 4 Dec. 2012. Web. 21 Sept. 2013. <http://baltimorepostexaminer.com/do-schools-really-need-to-start-early-how-about-parenting-101-classes-instead/2012/12/04>
- Pope, Justin. "Colleges wake up to notion that better sleep means better grades." The Washington Times. N.p., 3 Sept. 2012. Web. 22 Sept. 2013. <http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/sep/3/colleges-wake-up-to-notion-that-better-sleep-means/?page=all>
I Love It!
ReplyDeleteWhat better testament to this idea than the fact that I will probably be posting this reply at just around midnight (so I will keep this short so that I can go to bed ‘on time’). I am wholly in agreement of motion to have school start a few hours later, I’m going to go to bed late, regardless of whether school starts at seven, eight, or nine o’clock in the morning. In fact, studies have shown that the biological clocks of teenagers make them want to sleep in, in the mornings, and sleep later at night. Driving while sleep deprived has the same affects on your abilities and awareness as driving drunk.
“Life would also be easier for teachers because they will not have to waste precious teaching time to wake a student up who were sleeping in their class”. Nice touch by the way, I like the not so subtle ‘sweet’ tone here, but watch your verb tenses and singular and plural subject agreement here, they are jumping all over the place. You must have been tired when you wrote that sentence, if you were sleep deprived, the sentence would certainly fortify your argument. Maybe I am biased (and I probably am because I like my sleep), but this is a very persuasive argument, easy to read, and convincingly entertaining. Well Done!
Great argument Brian! Like Dveen mentioned above, I can personally relate to this topic: by the end of the week, I practically sleep-walk to my classes. However, if school times were to be adjusted to a later time, wouldn't the end of school also be pushed back as well? Factor in homework and after school activities, wouldn't students be going to bed even later? My point is that this system would be ideal if the entirety of a school day were reduced. Otherwise, its true students would have to wake up later for school, but that means they would be going to bed later too, so the amount of time they sleep would essentially stay the same.
ReplyDeleteGreat use of statistics and fact! I especially enjoyed the case study you included, as it made your argument more interesting and more focused. Well done!
I think we all work too hard. We have to wake up too early, and spend so much time doing the things we have to do, there's not much time left to do the things we want to do (and it doesn't really get better as you get older, sad to say). Great article on an issue that affects all of us!
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