Late to bed makes Jack a dull boy.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Late and irregular hours cause performance problems.

 

"Early to bed and early to rise,

"Makes a boy healthy, wealthy, and wise."

-- old proverb

 

Sometimes these old sayings come true, eh?

[AkemiAzula 280]

Well duh.

 

Can't really think of anything else to say to this. It is very obvious. I personally rise at about 5-6 am and go to bed around 8-9 pm

[ROFLyoshi 1,760]

Yet aren't there also studies showing the sleep cycle of teens doesn't fit well with school timetables?

[AkemiAzula 280]

School timetables are stupid. 9-3? My hours at the place I volunteer are along those lines and I spend half the morning and afternoon on Simtropolis talking about school timetables... sigh.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Middle and high schools should start at noon and run to six p.m.  Kids tend to burn the candle at both ends no matter how you try to restrain those raging hormones.  Better to let them sleep in and get a rude awakening when they get a job.

[AkemiAzula 280]

I'd suggest 7-5. A nice symmetrical day on the clockface. The sun shines for most of that time on most days, and it allows an hour either side for eating breakfast and dinner.

[Easy Bakes 253]

school schedules are  that way so parents can drop them of at day care school before work and pick them up on the way home

[LexusInfernus 908]

school schedules are  that way so parents can drop them of at day care school before work and pick them up on the way home

Most teens can get to school without the help of their parents. 

 

Though as for studies suggesting that teens can't handle the current schedules. Well, science also suggests the average person has an attention span of 3 times 1,5 hours a day. Yet most people seem to be able to work 8 hour jobs just fine. 

[Bipin 3,402]

 

school schedules are  that way so parents can drop them of at day care school before work and pick them up on the way home

Most teens can get to school without the help of their parents. 

 

Though as for studies suggesting that teens can't handle the current schedules. Well, science also suggests the average person has an attention span of 3 times 1,5 hours a day. Yet most people seem to be able to work 8 hour jobs just fine. 

 

 

Keep in mind though that in rural areas where the schools; often elementary, are far away from houses, but not quite far away enough that students are "bussed" in, the children require their parents to drive them. As for the attention span of about 1.5 hours per day, three times a day, science is indeed proving through a great deal of recent evidence that such a claim is correct. In fact, it is believed that nearly all individuals, especially adolescents, are most productive starting at noon. Unfortunately, it seems a lot of schools start their lunch at 12:00 and end it at 1:00. It's probable this has serious ramifications regarding student productivity, especially when they start the day so early. 

[Duke87 1,070]

The key reason for high schools to start early is to stagger the schedule so that the same school buses can be reused for the elementary school kids, and to reduce the impact on rush hour traffic that school buses have. In my town growing up, the school day for the elementary schools was 9-3, the school day for the middle schools was 8:30-2:30, and the school day for the high schools was 7:30-1:30.

As for why not make the high schools later rather than earlier, well, the logic goes that the older kids should get home first so that they're there when younger siblings get home if neither parent is around.

 

When I was a kid my bedtime was 9 PM. By the time I was in high school my parents weren't enforcing that anymore, but they did still insist that after 9 PM I retreat to my room so that they could have some quiet time in the evening to themselves.

[LexusInfernus 908]

Keep in mind though that in rural areas where the schools; often elementary, are far away from houses, but not quite far away enough that students are "bussed" in, the children require their parents to drive them. As for the attention span of about 1.5 hours per day, three times a day, science is indeed proving through a great deal of recent evidence that such a claim is correct. In fact, it is believed that nearly all individuals, especially adolescents, are most productive starting at noon. Unfortunately, it seems a lot of schools start their lunch at 12:00 and end it at 1:00. It's probable this has serious ramifications regarding student productivity, especially when they start the day so early. 

 

Honestly, that fact has only made me less productive. I use it as an excuse to take breaks all the time. 

 

And while I suppose people can only work at optimal efficiency 3 times a day for 1,5 hours, its not like they stop working afterwards. It just becomes harder and productivity drops a little. I think that fact is a little misleading. 

 

@Duke

8.30 to 2.30? That sounds like lovely school times. I had from 8.30 til 4.00 and sometimes even longer. 

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Let's not forget that all people are identical - including in their need of sleep and circadian rhythm - so absolute statements are the paramount of wisdom and should be followed blindly.

 

Seriously, the linked article makes frequent use of "may", "can", "tended to" and "appeared", and that's good in my books. Where they say:
 

The children with late and erratic bedtimes came from more socially disadvantaged backgrounds and were less likely to be read to each night and, generally, watched more TV - often on a set in their own bedroom.

After controlling for such factors, the link between poorer mental performance and lax bedtimes remained.

...I'd really like to know how they did the controlling part.

 

In the end, the conclusion "[...] in my opinion, for schoolchildren to perform their best, they should all [...] get a good night's sleep" is really hardly surprising.

 

On a side note, I like how they consistently put the emphasis on performance rather than on the well-being and the requirements of the little ones. Grow up to be good in the treadmill, children!

[Durfsurn 539]

As a teen I would love to have school in the afternoon. I love to sleep in and waking up at 8:00/7:30 AM isn't fun. My bedtimes vary as my parents don't really mind although after 10:30 PM it is usually frowned upon. I usually get to sleep at around 10:30/11:00 PM. So that's 8 1/2 to 9 hours sleep every night. Isn't this relatively normal?

[Bipin 3,402]

 

Keep in mind though that in rural areas where the schools; often elementary, are far away from houses, but not quite far away enough that students are "bussed" in, the children require their parents to drive them. As for the attention span of about 1.5 hours per day, three times a day, science is indeed proving through a great deal of recent evidence that such a claim is correct. In fact, it is believed that nearly all individuals, especially adolescents, are most productive starting at noon. Unfortunately, it seems a lot of schools start their lunch at 12:00 and end it at 1:00. It's probable this has serious ramifications regarding student productivity, especially when they start the day so early.

Honestly, that fact has only made me less productive. I use it as an excuse to take breaks all the time. 

 

And while I suppose people can only work at optimal efficiency 3 times a day for 1,5 hours, its not like they stop working afterwards. It just becomes harder and productivity drops a little. I think that fact is a little misleading. 

 

@Duke

8.30 to 2.30? That sounds like lovely school times. I had from 8.30 til 4.00 and sometimes even longer.

 

Well, hence why I said it applies to many individuals, not all. Of course, productivity is also dependent upon how the rest of your day is structured. As with many facts though, it can indeed be quite misleading, for the parameters of how it should be interpreted are not well defined. I'd say the most misleading part is that such a fact only applies to the most common/most studied routines. Nevertheless, it does hold some degree of truth and importance to most individuals.

[Meg 368]

 So that's 8 1/2 to 9 hours sleep every night. Isn't this relatively normal?

 

Most people I know are chronically sleep deprived.  But I am talking about adults, not kids.  It is difficult to fit that many hours of sleep into a day.

 

Getting back to high school students, other issues that keep them from being on a good sleeping schedule are jobs and sports.  Yes, it would be great if school was from noon to 6 p.m. but where does football practice fit into that?   or that student-type job that they need to pay for their car insurance?

[AkemiAzula 280]

I think people should rise early and go to bed early. One should start work early because otherwise one gets lazy and sleeps in and eventually can't be bothered to exist any more. 

 

Back where I used to live we had a shower so I showered as soon as I got up, which helped that immensely. Nowt like a spot of cold water to get you on your feet.

 

As to this attention span nonsense that's just laziness and excuses. People can work hard if they actually want to. Load of whingeing bludging layabouts. 

 

I can work for ten hours without food water or rest if I need to. 

 

I remember a few years ago I had to cut a lawn all day long for several weeks with shears because the mower had broken and I didn't rest all day 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

 

school schedules are  that way so parents can drop them of at day care school before work and pick them up on the way home

Most teens can get to school without the help of their parents. 

 

Though as for studies suggesting that teens can't handle the current schedules. Well, science also suggests the average person has an attention span of 3 times 1,5 hours a day. Yet most people seem to be able to work 8 hour jobs just fine. 

 

An adult job may look like 8 hours of drudgery, but don't forget the lunch break, two coffee breaks, conversations at the water cooler, etc. 

 

In periods of idleness, receptionist/switchboard operators often talk to friends on any spare line.  The understanding friends tolerate the interruptions on hold. 

 

Also, the last big outfit I worked for had a 7.5 hour workday and flexible hours.  You were required to be present during the core hours of 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.  However, some knowledge workers who had no public contact were allowed to work from home, only attending announced meetings.

[T Wrecks 10,209]

@ Mark Kochan: Well, that's nice for you and all, but it's a rather common mistake to assume that just because something works for you, it must work for everyone, and that everyone who's different from you either does something wrong or is somehow wrong.

 

There are people who are just useless in the early morning hours, but will get an amazing amount of stuff done while you already go to sleep. Right now, these people (I'm fortunately not one of them) face a lot of prejudice and hostility - they are often regarded as lazy and undisciplined, not to be trusted with responsibility, and so forth. However, where I live, scientists are more and more coming to a consensus that elementary school actually starts too early (8:15 AFAIR) for the kids, and that work hours should be more flexible to accommodate for the requirements of people who rise later and work best in the evening.

 

As far as attention span is concerned, I doubt you can define such a precise amount of time - and much less, use one definition for everyone. There are so many different tasks that require so many different types of attention that IMO you can't really say "That's the way it is, period".

 

For example, one person may be good at performing a mind-numbingly boring task for hours on end, whereas another person's mind may start to wander. One person may perform great work when you dump one huge stack of tasks on their desk to be processed one after another, where another person might despair and start to become unfocused. On the other hand, that other person may be superb at juggling multiple different taks without ever forgetting anything or becoming unattentive, whereas our "serial" worker may quickly lose track in such a situation.

 

Last but not least, there are tasks that require more attention and others that require less. A simultaneous interpreter, for example, will typically not interpret for more than 5-10 minutes before a colleague takes over - otherwise his head would explode.

[AkemiAzula 280]

I think it depends on which industry you work in what your breaks should be. In actual real work outdoors you naturally should drink some water every few hours. But office jobs really only require one break as its just sitting down all day on a computer in many jobs these days. 

 

School is like an office job. A lot of sitting down doing nothing. That's why they have recess. And weekends. 

 

Getting up early is beneficial because there are a lot of things you might want/need to do other than your job. Like going to the shop or going for a walk or taking a bath etc. Those who rise late have wasted half a day.

 

Going to bed late becomes a habit quickly. I used to go to bed after ten oclock back when I had a tv... It was nuts.

 

To T Rex:

 

Well if students are forced to get up early they'll think properly and won't become lazy. Students don't focus in class because of a number of issues, but that's no reason to tolerate such a problem. If students live healthy lives and have a good living standard and eat well they should be able to get up early.

 

There was a day and age when you had to get up early. I think we've become too soft these days.

[ROFLyoshi 1,760]

school schedules are that way so parents can drop them of at day care school before work and pick them up on the way home

Most teens can get to school without the help of their parents.

Though as for studies suggesting that teens can't handle the current schedules. Well, science also suggests the average person has an attention span of 3 times 1,5 hours a day. Yet most people seem to be able to work 8 hour jobs just fine.

An adult job may look like 8 hours of drudgery, but don't forget the lunch break, two coffee breaks, conversations at the water cooler, etc.

In periods of idleness, receptionist/switchboard operators often talk to friends on any spare line. The understanding friends tolerate the interruptions on hold.

Also, the last big outfit I worked for had a 7.5 hour workday and flexible hours. You were required to be present during the core hours of 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. However, some knowledge workers who had no public contact were allowed to work from home, only attending announced meetings.

Who gets that much in their workday? I used to work at my old job sometimes nine hours of productive work a day. Granted we got a two hour break, but it was unpaid and we had to be on our feet for those nine hours.

[AkemiAzula 280]

My only paid job I ever had we worked from 9-5.30 and had a total of an hours break time, divided into two fifteen minute and one half hour break. At my volunteer work we get two breaks, morning tea and lunch, but only work from 8.30-2.30

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

@roflyoshi:  I know you are a logger and not a dirty bum/I know you are a logger, you stir your coffee with your thumb.

[Meg 368]

 

 

Getting up early is beneficial because there are a lot of things you might want/need to do other than your job. Like going to the shop or going for a walk or taking a bath etc. Those who rise late have wasted half a day.

 

 

Not if one is working the night shift.   and lots of people do.

[AkemiAzula 280]

Obviously I wasn't referring to unusual working schedules. 

 

Punctuality and time-utilisation are the important things here, not when one begins and ends said utilisation.

 

I think school/work hours should be longer, but when they start/finish hardly matters.

 

Having said that the Sun rises around 6 usually and sets around 6 usually give or take two-three hours and daylight savings, so it seems logical to be awake during those hours to conserve electricity etc

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

A man works from dawn to dusk: A woman's work is never done.  But we are heading into a post-industrial leisure society, are we not?

[Alejandro24 575]

The old discussion about sleeping time. Is nothing new that the article says, but I've seen in a documental that each person has its own cycles of sleep.

 

Personally I'm more awake in the afternoon, from 12 hrs to 19 hrs, probably because in my childhood I went to the school at that hours, and that's because I register mostly all of my university signatures between those hours.

About sleep, regulary I went to bed at 21 hrs and I wake up at 7 hrs. In vacations sometimes it turns into 12 to 12 hours, I sleep between 21 hrs to 10 hrs (I'm lazy when I do not have too much to do ).

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Personally, I am a night person and have been ever since computer block time came in the third shift.  For years and years we could only do operating system testing after the production cycle ended in the second shift, so midnight was often my testing time.  If found that I got to prefer the hours of darkness.  Maybe, with software testing, it is always darkest before the dawn.  When I was doing this, it was all mainframes.  PC's did not exist before 1980 except as lab curiosities.  Computer systems cost in the six to eight figure range, and getting access to them was difficult.

[Cpt Johnny 57]

For now, I normally go to bed at around 11-12pm and wake up at around 7-8am.

 

When I was 8 years old, I used to go to bed at 8.30pm and wake up at 6am My elder siblings thought that I was crazy for sleeping so early.

[T Wrecks 10,209]

To T Rex:

 

Well if students are forced to get up early they'll think properly and won't become lazy. Students don't focus in class because of a number of issues, but that's no reason to tolerate such a problem. If students live healthy lives and have a good living standard and eat well they should be able to get up early.

 

There was a day and age when you had to get up early. I think we've become too soft these days.

Ah, there we have it: "forced to get up early" => "will think properly and won't become lazy", which translates to "get up late" => "you don't think properly and you're lazy". That's just what I was talking about.

 

"If students live healthy lives and have a good living standard and eat well they should be able to get up early." => not being able to perform at your best in the early morning means an unhealthy life, bad living standard and bad diet.

 

Work itself doesn't care when it is done, as long as it is done. Doing a great job from 7-10 in the morning is in itself in no way different from doing a great job from 7-10 in the evening.

 

What complicates matters is that we often need to interact with others and be present when they are. When your shop opens from 08:00-18:00, personnel needs to be present during that time. Likewise, that's why we can't just say "come to school whenever you feel like it".

 

However, there is much work that's not tied to any particular time of day, just to a deadline by which it needs to be finished. There is more and more international business across time zones that would actually open up possibilities and potentials for more flexible working hours. And as Meg mentioned, there are work shifts. But according to your post, the day shift people would lead a good life and think properly, whereas the night shift people would just be some lazy blokes leading a bad life.

 

Yes, people used to be forced to get up early - to work in the fields, to bake bread, to be at the market in time, etc. Work unfinished, getting dark already => sucks to be you. That was the past. However, we don't live in the past. The computer into which I type my text, the machine in the (artificially lit) factory that I operate, the receipts that I file - what do they care whether it's day or night outside? Times have changed, and those jobs that are tied to specific schedules due to natural conditions nowadays are rather an exception than the norm.

 

For the most part, we have it in our hands to set our schedules, we may just need to coordinate so that all people that need to be together to do their job will be together. However, whatever schedule we agree upon is no longer a natural requirement, but the result of choice. Whereas one person will tend to favour earlier hours, another person may prefer later hours. That doesn't make the latter person a lazy slob who leads an unhealthy life. However, since people getting up early are the majority and early working hours had widely been a necessity in days long past, there is much prejudice and hostility towards the late-rising minority that makes use of today's possibility of choice and agreement to say "Hey, why can't we start an hour later? I'm no good at 7 in the morning, and in the late evening, when I have my best ideas and can focus best, you won't let me work".

[AkemiAzula 280]

Just because times have changed doesn't make said changes good...

 

I didn't say those who get up early are healthier etc. I said those who don't procrastinate are. It isn't when they get up it's the fact they do get up instead of lay in bed for half the day watching films and smoking cannabis like my cousin in Brighton...

 

It is the method of getting up early not the time which counts. I may seem old school with my cold bath brisk walk mentality but I'm not the one who complains about stinging nettles and the sun all day. Good thing she isn't coming in to work any more.