As If We Need Any More Reasons To HomeSchool
Glenn links Slate article on the fixation with breakfast for school kids to help metal acuity, and the way circadian patterns and overall sleep deprivation get ignored in all this. If those who skip breakfast are also those in a zombie-like state, pointing to lack of breakfast as the cause of poor performance is hardly accurate. As people are increasingly aware, sleep patterns shift in teens and they tend to get less sleep when they really need as much or more than ever.
This has always been a hot button issue for me. Even before the studies and what attention the sleep and start time issue has gotten in recent years, to no apparent avail.
I went to Halifax Elementary, Silver Lake Regional Junior High, and Silver Lake Regional High Schools. The region was four towns: Pembroke, Kingston, Halifax and Plympton. Pembroke had grown explosively since the inception of the district, to the point of providing something approaching half of the student body. Pembroke long wanted to split from the district and have its own high school. Partly toward that eventuality, and to ease crowding, a second high school in the district was built in Pembroke and opened in 1976. All the non-vocational Pembroke students went there, while the other three towns continued to go to the original high school in Kingston, which itself was expanded at the same time.
As a result of the overcrowding leading up to opening of the added facilities, for a couple of years, the eighth grade at the junior high and ninth grade at the senior high were on afternoon sessions. I hit just perfectly to be on second shift both years, getting the bus somewhere around 11:00 AM and getting home around 5:00 PM.
During my six years of secondary education, those were far and away my best academically. Not. Even. Close. I also remember being unusually happy then; just plain feeling good. Discounting, of course, for teen angst.
There were negative aspects of being on that schedule, but I got enough sleep and was on a completely natural schedule for me. I don’t need any studies. I know early start times for schools are bad. How much of it is catering to what the teachers want? How much of it is a misguided attempt to “train kids for when they have to be to work”? I don’t know.
Definitely one more reason to homeschool.
Yeah, well, I don’t eat breakfast either. Look where it got me.....
Posted by caltechgirl on 06/21 at 12:49 PM
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