Well when you realize we treat school as glorified babysitting and not just education, part of the reason becomes more obvious. Parents work 40 hours so we need kids in school roughly that length of time. Especially when both parents have to work to afford to live.
We need to uplift a lot about the entire system for it to work.
Because kids need to be at school while parents work
It roughly lines up with morning shifts, I guess? When I was working at a grocery store our morning shift was like 6-3 with an hour lunch. I don’t know how you make sure your kids actually go to school if you’re at work by 6, though… And if you work evenings (or overnights, for places that are still open 24 hours) it doesn’t help at all.
Because parents have to go to work, and teens with boyfriends/girlfriends don’t know how to use condoms and can’t get abortions in some states. Also, used car prices and insurance make teens driving to school on their own unaffordable.
They would just stay up later if they knew they could sleep in. It won’t fix that.
Also, If we are going to change it, we need to just shift everyones starting time back an hour so their parents can still take them to school before work. Or possibly drop some time off the workday.
I get where you’re coming from in that first sentence, but teens are more tired than adults, all things considered. It’s a thing we’ve studied.
We explode into adulthood in just a few years. Growth, hormones and the attendant sexuality and social pressures, all that wears a young person to the bone. Teens aren’t lazy, their bodies are kicking their ass. Looking back on the late 80’s, it’s a wonder I moved at all.
On one hand I say, meh, it’s normal, let 'em deal with it. OTOH, I say, can’t we all realize the biological facts and make concessions for them? That last part costs real money BTW, there’s no magic switch to fix this.
My response was also along the lines of “just go to sleep earlier”. Then I yelled at some kids to get off my lawn before complaining about prune prices.
Jokes aside, I remembered that I’m not really a kid anymore, that I used to be sleepy during the day as well, and that I still couldn’t fall asleep before midnight.
I don’t have a viable solution for this problem. Going to bed earlier doesn’t seem feasible. The only thing I can come up with rhymes with amphetamine.
They would just stay up later if they knew they could sleep in.
A) Not infinitely
B) Not all of them
C) That doesn’t change the actual data we have that says later start times are better
we need to just shift everyones starting time back an hour so their parents can still take them to school before work.
Or… we could stop designing our cities so that that’s necessary?
Actual answer one heard that unfortunately makes sense: school sports after class. If you start classes later everything gets pushed back to obscene times.
Personally my high school started a half hour in grade 12. Just that made a world of difference.
That’s a pretty shit excuse at least for my schools times.
School starts at 7:20ish and gets out at 2ish and football, baseball, softball, soccer, basketball, and volleyball (maybe more idk) games start at 7. We don’t need 5 hours between. Getting out at 4 would not change that. It would just allow those players to get home late as always but actually get some sleep (footballs on Friday so those aren’t huge issues but the rest of the sports are during weekdays, often multiple in a row, which means those kids are tired as fuck.)
Tennis, Bowling, Swimming/Dive, Cross Country/Track and Golf (and any others idk) are all at about 3 which gives students time to get to said place after school lets out. Pushing those to 5 instead wouldn’t be that bad they’d get out at like 7 or 8 and have time to get home, do homework, and still get to bed before 11.
No sport is practicing for 6 hours. They’ll get home at not horrible hours after practice. Most could still practice for 2 hours then work a short closing shift then sleep.
that unfortunately makes sense: school sports after class
I disagree that it makes sense. Get the sports out of the school system entirely and have them be community-based or similar. I think that should apply that to most extracurriculars. I participated in sports, band, theatre, etc. so it’s not like I just hated it (I would argue that art, band, choir, gym, etc. are still good to have in the curricula of schools, just not the traditionally after-school part).
Sports are part of the reason many students even go to school. Taking athletics away from school would have a significant effect on dropout rates.
