Your alarm goes off at 6 a.m. and you groan as you wonder why school has to start so early. Teenagers are known to stay up late. Most people would assume it’s just because we’re just lazy, but that is not the case. According to an article recently in the Indianapolis Star, young adults are biologically programmed to stay up later and sleep later than adults. We need about 9.5 hours of sleep in order to properly function all day. So, starting school at seven in the morning is actually bad for our health and our academic performance as well.
According to the Indy Star, the average time for a teenager to go to bed is midnight. They then would need about nine hours of sleep, making their average time to wake up about nine. Adults are different as they are usually programmed to go to sleep at 11 p.m. and be able to wake up at 6:30 a.m. Teens bodies are programmed to sleep later so it is not right to ask us to get up at 6 a,m, to be at school around 7:30 a.m. Asking a student to come to school at 7:30 a.m. is equivalent to asking a teacher to come in at 4:30 a.m., according to Education Week.
The article in the Indy Star also stated that recent studies have shown that teens today are chronically sleep-deprived. Two-thirds of high school students fail to get eight hours of sleep each night because they aren’t ready to go to bed at an early time. This puts their health in great danger, According to the Indy Star, adolescents that don’t get enough sleep are more likely to become depressed, overweight and use drugs or alcohol.
There are a couple ways to fix this. One would be for teenagers to go to bed earlier, but based on the number of hours of sleep required and the time school starts, teens would have to be going to bed around 9 p.m., according to an article on the National Sleep Foundation’s website. Going to bed at 9 p.m. would be basically impossible for the average teenager as they usually have after-school activities and homework as well. School activities and homework prevent teens from going to bed before 10 p.m. most of the time.
The second solution would be to simply start school later. Starting school around 7:30 is very illogically as teenagers brains aren’t even properly functioning by that time. School is supposed to increase academic performance, but being in school that early can actually decrease academic performance, according to an article in Education Weeks. It’s difficult for teenagers’ brains to perform well in the early morning, but since they aren’t getting enough sleep as well, their performance is decreased as the day goes on when they get tired. Of course starting school later would cause a few obstacles. The elementary school would probably have to start earlier which would put small children outside at the bus stop before the sun is even up. Also, it would affect after school activities, causing students to get home even later. However, teens stay up late anyway, so starting school later would better fit their sleep schedules. The Secretary of Education Arne Duncan actually stated in Education Week that a way to increase academic performance is to let teens sleep longer and start school later. Starting school just an hour later would increase performance, and that technically is what school is supposed to do.
We, as young adults with developing brains, need more sleep. If the goal of school is to increase our academic performance, then we shouldn’t be starting school before our brains are even ready to function. Starting school just an hour later could possibly make a huge difference in our academic performance.
