If you went to high school in the US, you might remember early morning extracurriculars, sleeping through first period math, and bleary-eyed late night study sessions. If you are an adult, you may wonder if there is a better time to explore Shakespeare than at 8 am, or if there is a better time to expand the Taylor series.
As it turns out, early school start times for US high schools are built on a shaky scientific foundation according to a new book by journalist and parent Lisa Lewis. She explains why high schools in the US start early, the science behind that, and how later school start times can benefit everyone. She gives a primer on how to advocate for change.
The early start times were a mistake. Most students were able to walk in the first half of the 20th century. There were 60,000 one-room schoolhouses in the US in 1950. Around 20,000 were the number by 1960.
As authorities in the US feared that the Soviet Union was behind education in science and math, the trend accelerated. A 1959 report written by a chemist and retired Harvard University president recommended that high schools have graduating class sizes of at least 100. School consolidation began. The neighborhood schools were closing. The yellow school bus was in a position to become an icon.
Lewis shows how many districts staggered school start times so they could use the same buses for transporting children. High schools got the earliest slots because teenagers needed less sleep than young people.
AdvertisementIn the 50s and 60s, teen sleep was still being researched. Mary Carskadon, now a professor of Psychiatry and Human behavior at Brown University, led the Summer Sleep Camp experiment in the 70s. Lewis takes readers through highlights of the multi-year study in which scientists tracked sleeping patterns and metrics ranging from brain wave monitoring to cognitive tests in the same children over a decade.
The first look at teen sleep was surprising. Adolescents need the same amount of sleep as younger kids. All children in the study slept over nine hours a night. The ideal amount of sleep for teens is between 8 and 10 hours. According to the CDC, only 22 percent of high school students get at least eight hours of sleep each night.
The summer sleep camp experiment found that older kids had more energy later in the day. melatonin is the hormone that makes us sleepy. Teens get melatonin later in the night and later in the morning. The tendency of high school students to stay up late and sleep the morning away is not a result of sloth or defiance.
40 percent of schools start earlier in the year and the average school start time is in the 8 am to 9 am range. The high schools in the US started at 9 am a century ago.
Why haven't schools adjusted to the new information? Some schools have done that. Even in the age of phones and social media, Lewis shows how positive effects can still be seen in schools.
Many students and families provided positive feedback, as did the teachers, after a study was published in which students slept an additional 34 minutes each school night.
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