Changing School Starting Times: Better Sleep for Everyone
Changing School Starting Times: Better Sleep for Everyone
Sleep and education are both very important to people everywhere, but today a dilemma occurs that has a significant amount of students fighting to maintain both. As adolescents enter and endure high school, their bodies begin to undergo changes that affect the way they sleep, needing longer sleep at later times of the night. The problem with this is that adolescents’ sleep needs clash with their need for education, because high school begins early in the morning. Understanding the sleep of elementary school children, as well, can bring a resolution to this problem, though. Younger children are much like early birds, showing signs of alertness in the early morning. If the school times of these two age groups were switched, many problems that exceed better sleeping will be solved. High school and elementary starting times should be switched in order for adolescents to improve in school, while being beneficial to elementary school children.
Adolescents’ changing sleep schedule affects their performance in school. Many changes occur in the body during the adolescent years, which are the ages including high school students. There is biology behind all sleep including that of adolescents’, and studies show how they have changes in sleep patterns and changes in melatonin that make waking up in the morning dreadful and close to impossible for them. Mary Carskadon, a well-known doctor who specializes in sleep, did a study on the sleep of adolescents in 1980 which was redone and updated in 2004. She wrote on her experiment and it determines that adolescents require eight and one – half to nine and one – half hours of sleep each night (609). It was also proven that most adolescents undergo a sleep phase delay which means they will more likely have later falling asleep and waking up times. The typical time for adolescents to fall asleep is around eleven P.M. or later. When this change occurs, teens may feel wide
Sleep and education are both very important to people everywhere, but today a dilemma occurs that has a significant amount of students fighting to maintain both. As adolescents enter and endure high school, their bodies begin to undergo changes that affect the way they sleep, needing longer sleep at later times of the night. The problem with this is that adolescents’ sleep needs clash with their need for education, because high school begins early in the morning. Understanding the sleep of elementary school children, as well, can bring a resolution to this problem, though. Younger children are much like early birds, showing signs of alertness in the early morning. If the school times of these two age groups were switched, many problems that exceed better sleeping will be solved. High school and elementary starting times should be switched in order for adolescents to improve in school, while being beneficial to elementary school children.
Adolescents’ changing sleep schedule affects their performance in school. Many changes occur in the body during the adolescent years, which are the ages including high school students. There is biology behind all sleep including that of adolescents’, and studies show how they have changes in sleep patterns and changes in melatonin that make waking up in the morning dreadful and close to impossible for them. Mary Carskadon, a well-known doctor who specializes in sleep, did a study on the sleep of adolescents in 1980 which was redone and updated in 2004. She wrote on her experiment and it determines that adolescents require eight and one – half to nine and one – half hours of sleep each night (609). It was also proven that most adolescents undergo a sleep phase delay which means they will more likely have later falling asleep and waking up times. The typical time for adolescents to fall asleep is around eleven P.M. or later. When this change occurs, teens may feel wide
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