Most people will say that high school will be the best four years of a persons’ life, or that a person will miss high school once they are out in the real world. High school students would probably beg to differ considering the hours upon hours they spend doing homework or studying. Teens would also all agree that waking up in the early morning to get ready for school, or to not miss the bus is a dreaded part of their daily routines. Health Hours says “According to most sleep experts, most adolescents need about 9 hours of sleep per night. Today nearly 2/3 gets under 8 and 2/5 get under 6 hours of sleep per night.” This quote supports the fact that teenagers do not get the sleep that they need. High schools should consider having the school day start and end later for their students because it could improve the health, safety, and the academic achievement of their students. Not getting enough sleep could eventually lead to sleep deprivation, which could deteriorate the health of students tremendously. Research shows that sleep deprivation could lead to health problems such as high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke. By getting enough sleep it will increase student’s moods, and lower stress. Lowering stress will decrease the …show more content…
This is also seems like a downside to the teachers as well. Having those six hours before bedtime seems so important to teachers and students but what they don’t realize is they don’t have to give up their afternoons completely. Starting later and ending later does not mean that you go to school all day. Students would get out an hour or two later than normal and would still have plenty of time for after school activities such as homework, sports, or jobs. A two hour time difference in the afternoon would not make as much as a difference in their everyday life as a two hour time difference in the mornings
In Pros and Cons of Later School Start Times by Leigh Ann Morgan, the author informs the reader that “...AAA says that drowsiness contributes to more than 100,000 crashes per year.” Starting later would lessen this amount by ensuring that students have more time to sleep, therefore helping to prevent drowsiness. The main purpose of school is to help students grow in their abilities, however, sleep-deprived students may find this impossible to do so. Sleep Deprivation and Teens: ‘Walking Zombies’ by Valerie Strauss notes that “a mere one-hour nightly loss of sleep was equivalent to the loss of two years of cognitive maturation…” Students are not able to learn and function as well as they would be able to when given enough time for sleep.
As students age, they need later school start times to stay healthy, as shown in “Among teens, sleep deprivation an epidemic” by Ruthan Richter. It observes that “, “More than 87 percent of high school students in the United States get far less than the recommended eight to 10 hours”.
starting times begin at 7 A.M in the morning, making teenagers wake up around 5:00 A.M to 6:30 A.M. causing teenagers that stayed up last night weary and fatigued when they arrive at school. Sleep is an enormous part of growth, health, and prevention of stress, think about what happens when you lack sleep. Almost anybody that is exhausted will have lack of focus throughout the day. 28% of tired students tend to fall asleep in their first class causing a harmful grade. Some sleepy students do not even bother to show up to school, contributing to drop out rates and damaging grades to rise.
Did you know that roughly half of your life will be spent sleeping? Without sleep, you can not think clearly, are unable to physically do things at peak efficiency. Teenagers can find it harder to get to bed, and harder to get up in the morning, because of the changing of their internal sleep clocks. What is worse is that school, homework,and other extra curricular activities can interfere with the sleep cycle. It has been suggested that high school classes start later and end later.
Not getting enough sleep is not only unhealthy, it dangerous. In the article “Sleep to Succeed” it shows how any teens really do need sleep. They wouldn’t be able to function without it. If we don’t, we won’t be able to be social or have good grades. In this article it also states “Sleep deprivation is a serious issue for many teens.
So, they can improve the odds of adolescents getting sufficient sleep so they can thrive both physically and academically. I agree with this source, starting schools later could enhance student’s school performance academically and athletically. Starting school too early are preventing many teenagers from getting the sleep they need to start off their day. I aim to using this this source to support my claim as to why students need more sleep and how it would affect them throughout the school day. This will benefit my essay by forward explaining why school should start later in the morning and why doing this will be better for the students’
According to the National Sleep Foundation, a nonprofit organization that promotes public understanding of sleep and sleep disorders, starting school later is an adequate way for students to have a better memory, behavior, attention, mood, and executive function. The National Sleep Foundation states “, A National Sleep Foundation poll reported that 28% of teenagers have fallen asleep in class at least once due to lack of sleep. Negative effects of sleep loss include impairments in mood, attention, memory, behavior and executive function… increase in caffeine use… sleep deprived-teens at higher risk of car accidents.” This means that by just adjusting the time by an hour students are more aware of their surroundings, more focused on what they’re learning, have a better mood, and executive function, and it reduces the amount of sugary snacks they have eat or drink to stay awake.
In a study conducted by the National Sleep Foundation, they found that “Adolescents that go to sleep at midnight or later are also more likely to suffer from depression and have suicidal thoughts”(Start Times are Unhealthy to Students). While suicidal thoughts can lead to serious long-term problems for a specific student, but for those around them as well. Likely the most effective reason why schools should push back their start times is that of the fact that they pose a problem to teenage drivers. Findings made by the American Academy of Sleep Societies say that “There are data that demonstrate that lack of sleep has negative consequences for teens," he said. "And some data show that younger drivers are more likely to have crashes when they have inadequate sleep”(Holohan).
It has to be hard for teachers having to deal with their pupils falling sleep in class all the time. If students fall asleep in class, what do they learn? No work gets done, which means grades drop tremendously. If school started and ended later in the day, teachers and students would not have to worry about grades dropping because students would be alert and ready to learn.
In his article “The Economic Case for Letting Teenagers Sleep a Little Later,” Aaron E. Carroll insists that schools should delay start times to reap the abundance of economic and academic benefits. Carroll states that by starting school later there is more opportunity to achieve the recommended nine to ten hours of sleep every night. However, there’s the argument that delaying school start times would only make students stay up later making no difference at all, which may be true for some individuals. Carroll disproves this argument with a statistic from a study showing that by simply delaying school start times by 25 to 60 minutes sleep times in teens increase by 25 to 77 minutes per week night; which means that students allowed to sleep in still go to bed around the same time equating to more sleep time. Further studies used in the article state that by allowing time for more sleep per night students achieve higher grades, which later equates to a higher salary.
“Attendance, standardize test scores, and academic performance increased, while tardiness, substance abuse, and symptoms of depression decreased” (Hanes). Many health issues can occur from not getting enough sleep. Although, these issues do not occur when students get the correct amount of sleep. “Sleep is critical to brain development, memory function, and cognitive skills especially among children and teenagers” (Experts). Some of the difficulties resulting from sleep deprivation are impaired alertness and attention, difficulty to solve problems, cope with stress, and retain information.
While there would be some challenges in starting later, there are a multitude of benefits to the students. Mainly, that teens would be more alert in the classroom, and their academic performance would improve. Oftentimes, parents are perplexed as to why teens go to bed so late on weeknights. Furthermore, adolescents often
Schools should not shift their start time back to where they start their school later in the morning and end later in the day. If students are missing class or coming in late to school because they are tired, it’s their fault when their grades are dropping. In 2001 studies showed that school administrators cited extracurricular activities as a major reason why high school campuses would rather start earlier in the day (http://classroom.synonym.com/). Here are three reasons why this helps.
“If we decided to fit the school day around kids who can’t get out of bed. Starting late would mean finishing late, so teenagers would simply go to bed even later. Argue that delaying school times would simply cause most teenagers’ internal clocks to drift later, and in a matter of weeks they would find it just as hard to get out of bed” (Bernard Trafford par. 8). Having school start later it would just mean that teens would go to bed at the same late time or even later which would mean they wouldn’t have anymore sleep then they had gotten before.
Based on these realities, a debate has sparked over when the school day begins. One side believes that starting school later is illogical, citing changed schedules, disorganized teens, and less time for extracurriculars. The other side, believes that sleep time correlates with academic success and mental development. According to these