Jenah Cooney
May 15, 2012
College English/Surinak
Senior Research Paper
Period 2
Wake Up Later and Your Grades Will Be Greater High school is a part of every teenager’s life whether they like it or not. Although it is not a requirement; most, if not all, teenagers will experience at least one year of high school. With the experience of high school, students will also go through waking up early sometimes at five or six a.m. The starting time of high schools has been highly debated for several years. Those who debate this topic usually dispute on whether or not changing the time would be beneficial. Psychologists estimate that as many as 30% of children may have a sleep disorder at some point during childhood. Sleep disorders have implications both for social-emotional adjustment and for school performance. For this reason it is important for both parents and educators to understand how sleep works and how disruptions in normal sleep patterns can affect children and teenagers. Starting school just a half an hour later would benefit the most families and students, and also to accommodate for teens' sleep needs. One of the main beneficial topics to argue for starting school later is attendance. Schools should start later because it is proven that students will have higher attendance. If students can get more sleep, they are more likely to attend school on a regular basis. Studies have shown that after puberty, teenagers require more sleep, around nine and a half hours, and are getting less than needed, around seven hours. Mary Carskadon of Brown University performed an elaborate scientific study on the sleeping patterns of adolescents. Her research, later verified by other studies, found that not only do teenagers need more sleep but their sleeping patterns also shift. After puberty, teens’ sleeping patterns shift into a delayed phase, this means that all brain activity starts and ends later in the day than when they had prior to puberty. This is why teenagers would do better to go to bed later and to wake up later. Attendance has been one of the more challenging aspects of high school since students are not technically forced to go to school and get their diploma. Making the start time later in the day would appeal to more students, allowing them to get more rest and be attentive and present in school.
Delaying the starting time for high schools would improve the academic performance of students, even by starting school 30 minutes later. They would be more in tune with what is going on in class, and are more able and ready for learning later in the day. With increased alertness during class, academic performance is bound to improve. Schools so far who have adjusted their schedule, such as Edina High, Minnesota, and Pike County, Kentucky, have had positive results, with improved grades and attitudes. After all, the purpose of schools is to educate students, and to give them a chance to learn. Taking in new information later in the day is conducive to the students actually learning the material. If students are getting more sleep because of a delayed time of when school starts it is proven that more students will pay attention and be more alert during lectures and class discussions.
If high schools switched starting times with elementary schools, it would actually improve the learning of elementary students as well. Unlike teenagers, younger children tend to learn better earlier in the morning, and teenagers learn better later in the day. Some working parents of elementary school students complain that this would cause their children to be home earlier without supervision. However, most working parents of elementary school students probably are still at work when their children get out of school with the current schedule anyway. There are many after school day care programs available. Some elementary school families struggle with the current schedule as parents need to leave for work before school currently starts for their children. Changing the schedule would minimize this dilemma or even eliminate it. Having schedule difficulties for just after school should be better than trying to make arrangements for both before and after school. Therefore, many families of younger students would also benefit, as well at the teenage students.
Most schools are funded by their academic programs such as state testing and school projects; the better the grades the more money awarded to each school. Starting school later would boost education without the costs associated with improving other factors. Students would be getting more time for sleeping, allowing them to pay more attention in class and get better grades; thus boosting the education.
Changing the start time of school could improve safety as well. Most high school students get off of school with several hours before their parents arrive home from work. Police reports show that it is between the times that these teens get out of school and when parents get off of work that teen crime rates are highest. High school students who are too old to need a day care provider, would have less time unsupervised, providing less opportunities for trouble. An additional safety consideration is that many sleepy students drive themselves to school in the morning. These teens would be more alert and able to drive in the morning if school started later, resulting in fewer accidents on the road. The community's safety would improve as a result of the change in high school schedules.
Tiredness is often still considered today a sign of laziness. However, as America's National sleep debt is continuing to rapidly increase, people are finally becoming more aware of this serious dilemma. Being tired may make you lazy, which is why schools should start later to stray away from the laziness and tiredness. Teenage years are extremely important in development; teenagers need around nine and half hours as opposed to the seven and a half that most students get. Teenage students deserve the right to learn in a thriving environment. Delaying the high school schedule by an hour would be better for students' learning as well as have many other beneficial side effects. Perhaps before or after teenage years, "Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise," Benjamin Franklin once said. However, for teens today, a better slogan might be, "Wake up later and your grades will be greater!"
There are several thousand people who argue that changing the time that high school starts would not change anything. Lisa Belkin, from the New York Times, says that “the reason a lot of these kids are so exhausted is because they're staying up far too late”. If students get a later start time they will just stay up later; this is one of the main arguments against starting high school at a later time. Although this may seem like it is a great argument against starting school later, it would benefit the most students and families throughout the country. Most students would take advantage of the opportunity to sleep more or get more school work done. There was a survey done of about 280 high school students at Harriton High School in Philadelphia where the school day starts at 7:30 am and ends at 2:25 pm. The survey found that 78% of students said it was difficult to get up in the morning, only 16% said they regularly had enough sleep, 70% thought their grades would improve if they had more sleep, and 90% thought their academic performance would improve if school started later. The survey also found that students who had tests in the early morning periods didn’t feel as alert when taking them, and that the students thought the best time to take a test was between 11 am and 1 pm. All of these statistics prove the point that students need more sleep before school. While adults usually need 7 to 8 hours of sleep, teens need 8 to 9 hour. In addition, teens go to bed much later; their biological clock often keeps them up until 1 am to 2 am. If high school started just one hour later students would get enough sleep for them to function correctly and be on time to school. Another study was conducted in Newport, Rhode Island at St. George’s independent school. For two months, January 6 to March 6 of last year, the teens’ school day was pushed back from an 8:00am to an 8:30am start. The researchers found that even this small delay brought a broad range of benefits. As in previous studies, students reported greater length of sleep each night during the study period, but what was unexpected, was that students were not only sleeping later in the morning, but also went to bed earlier as well. In total, during the two month study, students gained an average of 45 minutes’ sleep on school nights. In part this increase may have been due to “seasonal changes in bedtime” the researchers say, but at least they found that some students reported trying to get to bed earlier as well after they noticed feeling better with an extra half hour sleep in the morning. Additionally, the number of students getting by on fewer than 7 hours of sleep per night dropped by nearly 80% during the study period. By the end of the two-month trial, the number of teens sleeping for at least 8 hours per night jumped from 16.4% to 54.7%. As you might expect with longer duration of sleep, surveys conducted at the beginning and end of the study period found that, after the delayed start time was put into effect, students reported feeling more alert and aware. They also were less likely to say they felt “too tired” for schoolwork or sports. A half an hour is all that is needed for the delay in time of which school should start; this allows them to get more rest. By giving students what they need, which is more time to sleep; their behaviors will improve over time. Also it has been proven after a study was conducted that fewer students reported feeling unhappy, depressed, irritated, or annoyed. Additionally, teachers reported that fewer students skipped their class or showed up late. Our teachers always tell us that getting enough sleep is important in order to learn, and this is true. However, not only is sleep important to learn, but it is important to our health. So why doesn't anybody do anything about our sleeping problem? "This is one of the main reasons why so many get sick with colds, coughs, and flu’s during the winter." Dr. Mercola, author of Total Health Program, said while commenting on how people in general get little sleep during the winter time. If students were able to sleep for just a little bit longer, then this might help decrease the amount of sick days they need over the course of the school year. All of the above reasons are prime examples as to why it is so important that the time of which highs school start should be changed. Pushing starts times later would not only benefit the students, but it would also benefit the community and school. Allowing teenagers to drive on the road with little sleep, or no sleep, is dangerous to anyone heading to work. "After 15-17 hours without sleep, performance on some tests was equivalent or worse than that at a BAC of 0.05% and response speeds were up to 50% slower for some tests." A psychology instructor at the University of New South Wales, has conducted many tests and all of his results are the pointing to the same conclusion, it is unsafe to drive while sleep deprived. If we don't let anybody drive drunk, then why are we allowing teenagers to drive sleep deprived when they would have slower reaction times?