[HN Gopher] Most states start school too early in the morning
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Most states start school too early in the morning
Author : jseliger
Score : 95 points
Date : 2024-01-03 20:09 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.atlasobscura.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.atlasobscura.com)
| bhpm wrote:
| The primary function of state funded K-12 is childcare to enable
| two parents to work. Unless and until that is not the case,
| school will start earlier than parents need to be at work. If it
| started later, that time would be replaced with pre-school
| care/activities.
| beaeglebeached wrote:
| Or just legalize 'neglect' (aka letting school age children be
| latchkey again without someone constantly lording over them).
|
| This bizarre and historically unprecedented scenario where
| parents simultaneously must both work but be prosecuted for
| doing so will likely be a blip in history.
| jonathankoren wrote:
| You can reliably get a young kid to come home by themselves.
| You can't reliably get a young kid to go to school by
| themselves.
| cjfd wrote:
| I started going to school all by myself, on bike, starting
| age 6 and did so reliably.
| beaeglebeached wrote:
| As did I by middle school, which is the earliest age the
| article actually focused on.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| I'd rather ask: who didn't? The only reason to not come
| to school on your own by that age is if the school is far
| away and hard to get to by public transport, which
| usually isn't the case.
| blahedo wrote:
| > _which usually isn 't the case_
|
| Where do you live? There are many, many places in the US
| where it is indeed usually the case. (Possibly depending
| on your definition of "far away")
| scns wrote:
| Did so, from my second day of school, on foot.
| CrazyStat wrote:
| I also walked myself to school starting at 6. It was only
| a couple blocks, but I was responsible for getting myself
| there on time.
| willcipriano wrote:
| Kids used to run entire farms unsupervised for weeks at a
| time. They are as capable as you allow them to be.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| My dad was walking to school around 1948.
| vondur wrote:
| I started walking to school in the 5th grade here in the
| US. My Mom never liked driving and gave it up.
| function_seven wrote:
| I started riding my bike to school in the 4th grade. Would
| have done so earlier, but the bike racks at school were
| off-limits until that grade.
| trgn wrote:
| your school at least had bike racks.
| IggleSniggle wrote:
| I'm sure that's true for some kids. But it's also true that
| many young kids are perfectly capable, although perhaps not
| all environments are conducive to this. I walked
| approximately half a mile to kindergarten with a friend
| every day, starting at age 5. I never had an issue with
| tardiness until high school, when I started driving.
|
| Some of my fondest childhood memories involve conversations
| with peers from these walks. I think it's an incredible
| shame that I can't let my children do the same, even at 8,
| and even though my 8yo is miles more mature than I was at
| his age.
| lolinder wrote:
| For those who haven't found it, Let Grow [0] is a great
| organization pushing for this kind of change. They have
| resources for parents and have actively worked with a number
| of states to get free range kids laws on the books.
|
| [0] https://letgrow.org/
| ShadowBanThis01 wrote:
| I don't know. It seems to be getting worse. Entire
| neighborhoods now come to a standstill because hundreds of
| giant cars converge on a school to deliver or pick up one kid
| at a time.
|
| And this is in L.A., home to probably the least-challenging
| weather in the country. We have entire generations of junior-
| high and high-school kids who are apparently too feeble to
| ride their bikes, walk, or take the bus to school. Pathetic.
| entropicdrifter wrote:
| You really think the kids are the ones with the agency to
| cause this kind of cultural shift, as opposed to changes in
| parenting culture?
| pengaru wrote:
| > And this is in L.A., home to probably the least-
| challenging weather in the country. We have entire
| generations of junior-high and high-school kids who are
| apparently too feeble to ride their bikes, walk, or take
| the bus to school. Pathetic.
|
| Weather is a minor factor vs. the population-
| size/density/quality of a place like LA.
|
| Just watch some of the George Floyd protest videos from LA
| to get a sense of what likely really concerns LA parents.
| No amount of snow, sleet, wind, and sub-zero temps can hold
| a candle to those apocalyptic scenes.
| blahedo wrote:
| > _apparently too feeble_
|
| In my county the kids are not permitted to walk or bike to
| the school; they can only take the bus or be driven (and
| they have to be picked up by a parent or someone on an
| approved list). I assume that stops when they're of driving
| age but I wouldn't be shocked if the 16-year-olds are
| allowed to drive but not to bike....
| ShadowBanThis01 wrote:
| Why? What rationale is given?
| beaeglebeached wrote:
| My guess is someone needs to be held responsible when
| once in a million Johnny gets flattened by an unlicensed
| perpetual drunk and society doesn't have the balls to
| accept a few die so the rest may have freedom and less
| obesity. They played responsibility hot potato and the
| kids lost.
| macspoofing wrote:
| >The primary function of state funded K-12 is childcare to
| enable two parents to work.
|
| That's the PRIMARY function, eh?
| panzagl wrote:
| Its not the stated function, but does appear to be the
| primary function.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I think that is a cynical and incorrect take.
|
| If babysitting was the primary function, there are much
| cheaper and easier ways to achieve it.
|
| Given that the vast majority of cost and effort is spent on
| the educational aspect, I would argue that is indeed the
| primary function.
|
| Additionally, if you look to history, schooling originated
| long before the need for babysitting.
| whythre wrote:
| Baby-sitting has always existed as a need; in the past it
| may have been done by various family members, but the
| modern 'daycare' model has its roots in the Industrial
| Revolution: as long as there have been machines for both
| parents to work, there has been someone offering to watch
| their kids for Money. Industrializing England had 'baby
| mills' where working class mothers could leave their kids
| (often in appalling conditions).
|
| The initial argument for public education was civics- if
| you want a nation of competent and driven citizens, they
| need to be armed with a good, comprehensive education.
|
| A lot changed in the Post-War era. Women entered the
| workforce, and the role of the public school has mutated
| to the point that many families depend upon it as the
| primary caregiver for non infant children (hence the
| complaints when the school week gets shortened from 5
| days to 4).
|
| Also you seem to believe that school being expensive
| somehow guarantees it's primary purpose is education.
| Many districts spend that money incredibly inefficiently.
| We have lots of touchscreen devices and giant stadiums.
| And yet teachers are forced to provide their own basic
| school supplies for the kids every year. Ancient musical
| instruments failing in kids hands due to rot. It's really
| not good out there.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| >Also you seem to believe that school being expensive
| somehow guarantees it's primary purpose is education.
| Many districts spend that money incredibly inefficiently.
| We have lots of touchscreen devices and giant stadiums.
| And yet teachers are forced to provide their own basic
| school supplies for the kids every year. Ancient musical
| instruments failing in kids hands due to rot. It's really
| not good out there.
|
| Indeed, I am making a cost based case to define the
| ordering of goals.
|
| Education, or even the wasteful pretext of education, is
| the primary driver of cost. Therefore, it is clearly the
| focus of our spending.
|
| Education is also the primary driver of the structure and
| form of our schools.
|
| If the primary goal was just daycare, they would look
| very different. California, for example, spent
| ~$24k/student in 2023. For that cost, you could pay for a
| home babysitter.
| panzagl wrote:
| For that cost you could get a highly qualified elementary
| school teacher for every 3-4 kids. But instead you get 1
| per 25-30. Schools would be structured very differently
| if the primary focus was education.
| andrewvc wrote:
| Whether we want that to be true or not it is. If every school
| were to close the immediate emergency would be that people
| would have no one to watch their kids.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| We actually have strong, immediate evidence of this as a
| result of COVID, where a prominent issue that even parents
| working from home encountered was a sudden new need to find
| stable work-life balance in an environment where the two
| had been ram-rodded together, happening in the same room.
| For a lot of parents, it was a disaster.
| ysavir wrote:
| True, but the purpose of schools isn't the immediate
| problems/outcomes. It's the long term outcomes of having an
| educated society.
|
| We could argue about whether the schooling system is
| sufficiently meeting those long term goals, but that
| doesn't mean they take a back seat to the immediate
| consequences of school closures.
| gretch wrote:
| > If every school were to close the immediate emergency
| would be that people would have no one to watch their kids.
|
| If the pipes in your house burst right now, your immediate
| emergency would be to pretty much stop everything and stop
| your house from completely flooding.
|
| That doesn't mean that the primary purpose of your life is
| a pipe-fixer.
|
| I think you made the classic mistake of confusing urgency
| with importance.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| > pipes in your house burst right now
|
| > primary purpose of your life
|
| In this thread, we're not talking about the primary
| purpose of one's life, we're talking about the primary
| purpose of school as it relates to parents. In that way,
| the pipes are analogous to the school and, as you said:
|
| > If the pipes in your house burst right now, your
| immediate emergency would be to pretty much stop
| everything and stop your house from completely flooding.
|
| Just like
|
| > If every school were to close the immediate emergency
| would be that people would have no one to watch their
| kids.
|
| Specifically because the schools are as important to
| watching kids as pipes are to moving and containing
| water.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| _A_ function, certainly. Your argument does nothing to
| assert that it 's the _primary_ function, however.
| wharvle wrote:
| Schools would work very differently if this were truly the
| primary reason they exist.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| There is an old Paul Graham essay to that effect
| (https://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html). It's a pretty good
| essay (though I think there's plenty of room to argue the
| finer points).
|
| The tl;dr of how it applies is tht industrialization mandates
| finding something for young people to do (that _isn 't_
| working) in a way that previous eras did not. In the era of,
| say, sail, you could be a 14-year-old sailor. A 14-year-old
| in a factory was decided (over years and lessons paid in
| blood) to be not only counter-productive, but dangerous for
| the 14-year-old. We outlawed it. But that does cause the
| demographic problem: you can't have these young folks roaming
| free getting into trouble, so what do you _do_ with them?
|
| The hypothesis that forms is high school is less about
| education and more about containment (making sure,
| essentially, that we babysit / warehouse our young adults
| until they ripen enough to be productive industrial-society
| members).
| Eisenstein wrote:
| > you can't have these young folks roaming free getting
| into trouble
|
| Why should that be self-evident? What is wrong with kids
| 'roaming free'?
| khazhoux wrote:
| Well, that and _brainwashing_ young minds into bowing down to
| the _almighty dollar_ so they can subjugate themselves to
| _The Man_ and become another grazing sheep, meat for the
| grinder of the Capitalism Uber Alles machine and the
| military-enslaverist complex!
|
| I might be wrong though. I haven't completed my Cynicism 101
| course yet.
| soupfordummies wrote:
| be a good little cog-in-training and sit your child butt in
| that seat for 8 hours-- DON'T!! TALK!!!
|
| (you're never gonna finish Cynicism 101 if you don't get
| your act together!)
| khazhoux wrote:
| Joking aside, though, Cynicism 101 would be an awesome
| class to take.
| gmm1990 wrote:
| the article states the recommendation is for middle and high
| school students so maybe a little overlap. I assume most kids
| can be autonomous when they are in high school.
| ShadowBanThis01 wrote:
| But starting absurdly early presumably means kids get OUT
| absurdly early, so it doesn't solve the work problem.
| ejb999 wrote:
| and that is why _after_ school programs exist - start school
| later, then you need _before_ school activities instead -
| which doesn 't solve any problem.
| ShadowBanThis01 wrote:
| If your job doesn't allow you to get your kid to school at
| 8:30 and no earlier, you need a job that treats you like an
| adult.
|
| + Sad that some downtrodden drones try to bury this
| sentiment instead of demanding better treatment.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| I would not call it the _primary_ function, as state-funded
| K-12 has existed far longer than dual-income families.
|
| Though I admit I'm just making this up and I could be
| completely wrong. How common was it to mothers to work in the
| 60s, 50s, and before? Was state-funded K-12 as ubiquitous back
| then as it is now?
| throwaway17_17 wrote:
| It is my understanding that in general the 'mandatory' nature
| of education was less enforced prior to ~mid-70's. Especially
| when considering rural, and agriculturally intense, locales.
| op00to wrote:
| Imagery of Dennis the Menace from the 50s and 60s getting
| taken to school by a truancy officer begs to differ.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Cartoons often are not a reliable basis for assessing
| actual practices. All those comics indicate is that most
| people would understand, in context, the notional
| function, it tells you nothing about the degree of
| practical enforcement.
| mikestew wrote:
| I grew up in Indiana, literally in the middle of
| cornfields. Farm kids went to school, and sometimes smelled
| like they'd just got done with chores. But no one to my
| knowledge got cut slack because they had farm work to do.
| And what parent wants their kid to grow up uneducated? Even
| if they're supposed to grow up and take over the farm
| later, you'll never go to Purdue for that ag degree if you
| don't go to high school.
|
| Granted, just one piece of anecdata from just one U. S.
| state. But without evidence to the contrary, I'm having a
| hard time picturing any adult in the process, parents or
| school employee, being content with uneducated ignoramuses
| as long as they get the pigs fed.
| tesdinger wrote:
| If that is the case then the children could simply stay at home
| and leave later.
| wharvle wrote:
| Schools in my area start elementary schools way too late for
| that, unless you're paying for pre-care and not using the bus.
|
| They do this so high school--and nb many high schoolers can get
| themselves to school in the morning, so parents don't
| necessarily _have to_ be home for that--can start earlier (no
| district has so many buses they can start all schools around
| the same time--they have to stagger them), to leave more time
| after school for sports practice and other extracurriculars
| (but really, for sports).
|
| > If it started later, that time would be replaced with pre-
| school care/activities.
|
| Even without ours being the way it is, that would still just
| mean more time in (typically paid) _after-school care_. The
| hours absolutely do not overlap well enough to provide
| convenience, only relief from _part_ of the cost of childcare.
| dadjoker wrote:
| I still don't understand why just going to bed earlier is a
| difficult concept to grasp.
| krunck wrote:
| Have you raised a teen?
| ironmagma wrote:
| For that matter, were they not a teen?
| anthomtb wrote:
| Sometimes I think the stress of parenting causes folks to
| forget what they were really like in their youth.
| deathanatos wrote:
| I'm not a parent per se, but I routinely see my own
| childhood self in my nibling1. It makes me always say a
| silent "I'm sorry, Mom" for all the same grief I caused
| her when I was a child.
|
| I figure this is why parents (and moms, in particular,
| since historically they've been the one to rear children)
| are so revered: they put up with all that crap, and now
| we all feel guilty for it.
|
| (1https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nibling)
| mstudio wrote:
| The article addresses this here:
|
| > Early school starts are not the only cause of teenage
| drowsiness, but they are a crucial factor--especially because
| natural sleep cycles make it difficult for post-puberty
| teenagers to fall asleep before 11 p.m.
| logifail wrote:
| > natural sleep cycles make it difficult for post-puberty
| teenagers to fall asleep before 11 p.m
|
| (We have one post-puberty teenager and two other kids) ...
| our experience is that this does depend on whether you let
| your kids keep their phones and tablets in their bedrooms.
|
| As many adults will confirm, going to sleep sure is easier
| without distractions.
| kevingadd wrote:
| Insomnia wasn't invented by Google and Facebook
| InitialLastName wrote:
| I was a teenager before cellphones were ubiquitous; I still
| found plenty of ways to avoid sleeping when I found myself
| awake and in bed.
| fzeroracer wrote:
| It's not.
|
| Source: I was a teen once in an era without smartphones.
| Turns out lights out at 10pm didn't help me sleep at all, I
| just tossed and turned for a few hours until my body said
| it was time to sleep.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| It's incredible how so many people just fail so hard to
| consider that other people may not share their exact same
| experiences.
|
| Yes, you can probably distract someone into not sleeping
| who would be sleeping well otherwise. Most people however
| will struggle with sleeping at unnatural hours regardless
| of any distractions, and may use their phones and tablets
| in their bedrooms in hopes to help themselves fall asleep
| earlier.
| tesdinger wrote:
| You wake up when sunlight wakes you up and then get tired
| around 16-17 hours after that, if sunlight is gone.
| Distractions are a smaller factor.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| You're probably able to sleep at will and are unimaginative
| enough to not come up with the idea that not everyone possesses
| this ability.
| nightfly wrote:
| > because natural sleep cycles make it difficult for post-
| puberty teenagers to fall asleep before 11 p.m
|
| You're fighting biology.
| tqi wrote:
| 11pm is a social construct (one that changes twice a year in
| many states at that), not biological fact.
| fasterik wrote:
| The article does briefly mention bed time, though I'm not sure
| how scientifically supported the claim is:
|
| _> Early school starts are not the only cause of teenage
| drowsiness, but they are a crucial factor--especially because
| natural sleep cycles make it difficult for post-puberty
| teenagers to fall asleep before 11 p.m._
| herpdyderp wrote:
| How is a sleep cycle not determined simply by when you go to
| bed and wake up? (Besides the sunset/sunrise schedule.)
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| Assuming your question isn't sarcastic, laying in bed and
| struggling to fall asleep for hours doesn't tremendously
| help with waking up early.
| LaffertyDev wrote:
| Sleep Science is ongoing and very much an active area of
| research. Sleep can be informed by biology, diet, lighting,
| comfort, heat... among a vast host of other factors. Ask
| yourself this -- why do you get tired? ("Because I'm
| sleepy" -- _why_?)
|
| The answer is (surprisingly to most) complicated and
| illusive.
| com2kid wrote:
| Your entire body runs on an internal clock, down to
| portions of your immune system that switch over to work
| differently at night.
|
| Laying down in bed at 9pm doesn't guarantee a person falls
| asleep right away. For some people, yes, their natural
| cycle syncs up with an ideal work/life sleep schedule, or
| their bodies are just better at adapting.
|
| But that isn't the case for everyone.
| herpdyderp wrote:
| This implies that if you simply move time zones
| sufficiently then your natural cycle would match up with
| your work/life sleep schedule. Does that actually happen?
| If not, what other frame of reference is your natural
| cycle syncing up with?
| marssaxman wrote:
| We don't all fall asleep simply because we're in bed; some
| of us, at some stages of our lives, will toss and turn and
| fidget, waiting for tiredness to arrive - potentially for
| hours! - if we go to bed earlier than our body clocks
| demand.
| kevingadd wrote:
| going to bed != falling asleep
|
| depending on which physician you ask, it can actually be
| worse to just lie in bed for hours and hours without
| sleeping.
|
| it's definitely bad to put yourself in a situation where
| you _must_ go to sleep at X PM and wake up at Y AM, and
| then you 're repeatedly failing to fall asleep so now you
| rely on things like sleeping pills, or you're perpetually
| exhausted and underperforming at tasks like classes or work
| and the stress creates a feedback loop of even worse sleep.
|
| it certainly wasn't good for me when i was younger!
| fzeroracer wrote:
| Because the circadian rhythm of a human body can vary
| drastically from person to person, that's why some people
| are more naturally night owls, or have cycles closer to
| 23/25 hours than 24. You can try and make a teenager go to
| bed at 10pm, but if they're unable to sleep for an hour
| then it doesn't matter 'when' you go to bed.
|
| This gets even more important for kids and teenagers
| because your chronotype can shift drastically as you
| transition towards young adulthood until it settles into a
| certain rhythm.
| herpdyderp wrote:
| Sounds like it's impossible to match everyone's circadian
| rhythm then, so what can we realistically do about it?
| deathanatos wrote:
| ...even if it were the case that schoolchildren's sleep
| cycles were dictated by the sun (which several comments in
| this section indicate isn't the case, and contain
| references which I suppose one could follow) ... my school,
| for example, started at 7:50am. That meant waking up _well_
| before sunrise during some parts of the year (~70 minutes
| before sunrise, in the darkest portion1). I remember always
| being _very_ tired for first period ... all the more
| amazing that I passed AP Physics, which I had first period.
|
| 1(sunrise ~7:11a in the winter, we'd wake up at 6a. ~40m
| for breakfast/morning routine, ~1h for transit, and a
| little bit of wiggle, since you'd want to be there by
| ~7:40a at the latest.)
|
| (... and there are routinely threads on HN where people
| advocate for moving that wakeup to ~5a standard by futzing
| with DST.)
| tesdinger wrote:
| Sunlight
| trgn wrote:
| It's the difference between morning people and night owls.
| patwolf wrote:
| 11 p.m. also seems oddly specific given how different 11 p.m.
| can be depending on what extremity of a timezone you're in or
| whether it's DST.
|
| When I was a teenager the TV shows I wanted to watch usually
| dictated when I went to bed.
| herpdyderp wrote:
| It's simple:
|
| bedtime = school_start - time_to_get_ready - 9_hours
| LaffertyDev wrote:
| If you genuinely want to learn, I think the popular book "Why
| We Sleep" covers this (and various other topics) very well.
|
| Short version: Young people sleep schedules naturally deviate
| and it is legitimately difficult for a large segment to "Just
| go to bed earlier".
| floxy wrote:
| _Matthew Walker's "Why We Sleep" Is Riddled with Scientific
| and Factual Errors_
|
| https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/
| LaffertyDev wrote:
| Thanks for the link. I read the book with the popular-
| science-ness of it in mind and was glad to have done so. It
| was produced right in the middle of the replication
| crisis... which isn't a particularly good look. I agree
| there are _a lot_ of ridiculous claims that are tenuous at
| best in the book. He also repeats himself a lot in a quite
| annoying way.
|
| I still think the book has merit as an accessible way for
| people to learn more about sleep.
| LaffertyDev wrote:
| You sent me down a rabbit hole on this person's blog. I
| found their 2022 reflections very interesting and
| tangentially relevant (does not dismiss the point made
| about Why We Sleep, I just found it interesting.)
|
| https://guzey.com/2022-lessons/
| BeefWellington wrote:
| This dissection is, on its own, full of inaccuracies.
|
| It may be true that the book is based on some weak studies
| but anyone can cherry pick a few individual sentences out
| of their context and from that write an essay about how
| wrong someone is (essentially the first 4 points that don't
| relate to a data error are summed up this way).
|
| In fact, even some of the studies that person is
| referencing don't agree with the theses presented.
|
| As one real basic example: The author of that blog is
| disingenous when they take the sentence:
|
| > the shorter your sleep, the shorter your life span
|
| Out of context from the rest of the page:
| https://archive.org/details/why-we-sleep/page/n9/mode/2up
|
| Within context it's clear the author is speaking about
| specifically getting _too little_ sleep as short sleep. In
| that context, shorter doesn 't mean what is implied by the
| blog author's response (less in hours).
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| Just because you're going to bed earlier doesn't mean you're
| going to sleep earlier.
|
| When I was a teen, I didn't get tired until nearly midnight.
|
| Even when I was getting up for school at 6 AM. My parents would
| send me to bed some time between 9 and 10, and I'd toss and
| turn wide awake for 2 hours. Even with sleep deprivation
| stacking up over the week as I was only getting 6 hours of
| sleep, I still couldn't get to sleep as I was simply not tired.
| letwhile wrote:
| There is no teen-gene that sets your sleep schedule in stone
| tho afaik. Maybe some psychological problems?
| SirMaster wrote:
| But is that the norm? Is that how it is for most people?
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Sample size of 1 (well I guess 2 with the parent post) but
| yes it was the same here.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| A lot of studies have shown it's common. Maybe not quite to
| the level I had, but teens in general have circadian
| rhythms that are shifted later.
|
| The problem of course is that they make high school start
| _earlier_ than middle school despite the tendency to want
| to rise and sleep later so that high school kids can arrive
| home before their possible younger elementary school
| siblings and watch them.
| mjfl wrote:
| and on the other side of this, adding an hour or two will not
| solve the problem if kids then stay up an additional hour or
| two on their apps, which will certainly happen. People are
| being incredibly dishonest with themselves on this issue.
| tesdinger wrote:
| Sunlight can wake you up and is a lot brighter than
| artificial light
| frumper wrote:
| I can sleep just fine in broad daylight. No curtains
| needed. I'm glad it can wake you up though.
| tesdinger wrote:
| Sunlight
| khazhoux wrote:
| Sounds like something an early-riser would say.
| karaterobot wrote:
| > This map shows which parts of the U.S. ignore the science.
|
| I'm starting to dislike the phrase "the science", since I usually
| hear it used as a conversational bludgeon. The American Academy
| of Pediatrics recommended 8:30 AM as a minimum start time, that's
| not the same as "the science" definitely saying one thing or
| another. I don't have kids, and don't really care when schools
| start, so this is less a comment about that as it is about how
| annoying "the science" is as a phrase, how it's not a good
| description of how science works, and how it's usually misapplied
| to end conversations in favor of your prior opinion.
| legitster wrote:
| > I'm starting to dislike the phrase "the science", since I
| usually hear it used as a conversational bludgeon
|
| This also goes up there with the "in this house we believe
| SCIENCE IS REAL" signs.
|
| We're currently living through the replication crisis and are
| awash in fraudulent academic journals. I don't think people who
| say this stuff would actually engage with you in a conversation
| about proper p-values for given sample sizes. So it's really
| just shorthand for trying to associate yourself to a certain
| intellectual class.
| lolinder wrote:
| > trying to associate yourself to a certain intellectual
| class.
|
| In general, it's filling the vacuum left by religion. One
| part of that is what you identified: people generally need
| something greater than themselves to identify with, and
| "intellectual" is a tempting option.
|
| Another part of it is that people generally crave certainty
| and fear the unknown. Religion fills that need by providing
| crisp, clean answers that don't provide a lot of room for
| questions and "what if"s. In the absence of a traditional
| organized religion, people try to fill that void with what
| seems to be the new, popular replacement--science.
|
| Unfortunately, science is _by design_ all about uncertainty.
| As soon as it becomes a dogma it ceases to be science.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| Completely agree.
|
| If anyone "believes", "trusts", "follows", etc. science,
| then they are doing science wrong.
|
| The most fundamental element to science is skepticism.
| Following the essays of a scientist is no different than
| following the teachings of a priest.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| See this comment, especially the last paragraph:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38859965
|
| "Believing", "trusting", "following" science means using
| information from an entity that presumably follows the
| scientific method to ascertain their information, and is
| otherwise fallible and subject to change pending new
| data.
|
| This is in contrast to "believing" information from an
| entity that did not procure information via the
| scientific method, and is usually infallible and not
| subject to change pending new data.
| Nevermark wrote:
| > The most fundamental element to science is skepticism.
|
| We probably agree on the right way to apply "skepticism"
| re science.
|
| But the self-described "skeptics" I know often ignore
| evidence. Which is one way the word (Words! They suck!)
| can be validly interpreted.
|
| I would say the fundamental element of science is "the
| evidence based search to continually improve our current
| understanding".
|
| I particularly like how "understanding" inoculates
| against the more static, subjective, bias friendly,
| identity and ideologically based, implications of
| "belief".
| the_snooze wrote:
| > Another part of it is that people generally crave
| certainty and fear the unknown... Unfortunately, science is
| by design all about uncertainty.
|
| It's not a surprise that people put "science" up on a
| pedestal when science education is too often about getting
| the correct answer to questions. Instead of asking
| questions and understanding the limitations of any approach
| to answering them. Restraint and humility aren't exciting,
| but they're so important.
| libraryatnight wrote:
| Those signs are usually accompanied by a few other slogans
| that should tip you off that they're a response to certain
| cultural force in the world that lauds ignorance and hate -
| they're not trying to say they're intellectuals, they just
| listen to their doctors and do their best to take a kind and
| informed approach.
|
| It strikes me as a response to a trend callousness and
| deliberate ignorance.
| op00to wrote:
| If people aren't logically consistent with their lawn
| signs, society has failed.
| lolinder wrote:
| Those signs are just as guilty of pushing ignorance and
| hate as the cultural force you're alluding to--you perceive
| them to be different because their ignorance overlaps with
| yours and they hate the things you hate.
|
| Signs like these take a strawman version of "the other
| side" and define the residents of the home _in opposition_
| to that other side. It 's evidence that the person who put
| it up views themselves as part of the culture war, not
| evidence that they strive to be kind and understanding of
| people who are different than them.
| MrBuddyCasino wrote:
| There are better signs [0]: I This House We
| Believe That Simplistic Platitudes Trite
| Tautologies And Semantically Overloaded Aphorisms
| Are Poor Substitudes For Respectful And Rational
| Discussions About Complex Ideas
|
| [0] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FrbrLEZXwAICrhW?format=jpg&na
| me=...
| marcosdumay wrote:
| The "in this house we obey the Laws of Thermodynamics" signs
| used to be kinda popular. I guess that's the dumbed-down
| version of them that gets accepted by the masses.
|
| I wonder if whoever coined the phrase knew it was a joke
| deprecating whoever buys it. Like those movies where the
| point is "those monsters are horrible, aren't they? yeah, you
| are doing basically the same right now."
| chung8123 wrote:
| It is now being used as a term to divide and pick sides. Data
| can be a bunch of different things and life is about trade
| offs. When someone says ignoring science I always think they
| are a hiding an economic or other fact they don't want someone
| to look too closely at.
| LaffertyDev wrote:
| I agree with you about having annoyance with the phrase
| especially in the use of divisive topics.
|
| I disagree in that, I don't think this is a divisive topic. I
| have not heard of a valid critique for school start times
| should be later aside from schools being a daycare supplement
| for working parents. But that's not science, its
| politics/economics. "The science" is, in my experience, very
| clear that young people should be allowed to wake-up later in
| the day to better conform with their natural sleep cycles.
| bitwize wrote:
| Well, the solution to that is to assess whether work starts
| too early in the morning. Me, I do all my best work in the
| afternoon/evening.
| scythe wrote:
| This can probably be addressed in itself by separating
| "aftercare" into an hour in the morning of "beforecare" in
| cases where parents really need to drop their kids off early.
| It's far from convenient for parents to pick their kids up at
| 3:30 PM, especially after waiting in a long line of cars, so
| we already have buffer times for that.
|
| For a personal perspective, when I was in high school, if I
| had needed to take the bus, I would have had to get on it
| before 6 AM, since I was at the beginning of the route (first
| or second stop, IIRC). Luckily, some family friends had a
| daughter who was an upperclassman at the same school, and she
| drove me. I would guess there are few parents well-served by
| their teenagers getting up at five in the morning.
| cardiffspaceman wrote:
| It also depends on how far the parents have to commute. I
| grew up in the LA area and my parents both worked in
| downtown LA. Getting up at 5 am was the routine for my
| parents.
| thegrim33 wrote:
| I'm having a hard time putting this into words but your
| viewpoint really feels like, to phrase it as a software
| engineering analogy, a new developer that comes into a 20
| year old project, looks at what currently exists, calls it
| all trash, says the people that came before you were dumb and
| didn't know what they were doing, and you just start
| rewriting all the code.
|
| Do you really think all the states and people that decided
| these things in the past were all stupid, or not following
| "the science" back then, or just picked start times at
| random? Do you really think you know better than all those
| states and people? Did the science change since then? Did the
| reasons to start school early/late change since then? Maybe
| they did. But if they did, you could maybe elaborate on that
| rather than just saying "the science is so clear" and
| dictating the way things should be.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > Do you really think all the states and people that
| decided these things in the past were all stupid, or not
| following "the science" back then
|
| I don't really disagree with your point, but... Have you
| looked at the overall quality of the decisions those people
| made?
|
| They were not stupid, but the overall amount of real
| information they dealt with was ridiculously low. And the
| overall amount of fake information they dealt with was
| ridiculous high. The odds of any random choice they made
| being a good one aren't very high.
| ttymck wrote:
| > Do you really think all the states and people that
| decided these things in the past were all stupid, or not
| following "the science" back then
|
| Yes. Why do you believe otherwise?
|
| > Do you really think you know better than all those states
| and people
|
| Yes.
|
| > Did the science change since then
|
| Yes.
|
| > you could maybe elaborate on that rather than just saying
| "the science is so clear"
|
| Does every discussion need to re-articulate the accumulated
| evidence? Can't there be some assumption of informed
| debate?
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/sleep/features/schools-start-too-
| early.h...
| gretch wrote:
| I agree, and particularly the phrase "ignore the science".
|
| It presumes that this single thing is the one we should all
| build our lives around and there are no other priorities to
| balance.
|
| All of us in our lives "ignore the science" in some form or
| other.
| antisthenes wrote:
| Nah, you're just flat out wrong.
|
| The AAP is comprised of pediatricians, e.g. medical
| professionals, so people who have spent at least 100x to 1000x
| more time thinking about these issues than your average
| American or HN poster. This includes research and clinical
| studies, and meta-analysis.
|
| So for all intents and purposes, their recommendations might as
| well be science.
|
| > I don't have kids, and don't really care when schools start,
| so this is less a comment about that as it is about how
| annoying
|
| Then you should probably just not comment in the future,
| especially if you're not a pediatrician AND you don't have any
| skin in the game. Otherwise, it sounds like Joe Rogan chiming
| in about vaccines.
| dissident_coder wrote:
| "The science" has become religious dogma to many people, the
| complete anthesis of science. When people say they (follow)
| "the science" I don't even bother listening to what they have
| to say anymore.
| bitwize wrote:
| It's pretty much typical late 2010s/early 2020s "I f'n love
| science" pop culture mentality. People who actually love
| science would view scientific claims with a critical eye,
| because that's what someone practicing good science would do.
| helen___keller wrote:
| > The American Academy of Pediatrics recommended 8:30 AM as a
| minimum start time, that's not the same as "the science"
| definitely saying one thing or another.
|
| This is a nitpick at best. From outside a given field, one
| generally has no option but to pick one or some sources as
| authoritative and refer to them (or to declare no source is
| authoritative).
|
| In other words, if I say "the science says XYZ" this is
| shorthand for "my preferred authoritative sources of
| information on the relevant field assert XYZ"
|
| Can this be incorrect? Yes. Is this often used as a bludgeon?
| Yes, and reasonably so: without piercing the research veil,
| what discussion could exist besides disagreeing on a sources'
| authority?
|
| If I say "the science says kids shouldn't wake before 8 am",
| and you respond with some neuroscience argument that childrens
| brain can adapt to waking up before 8 am, you are essentially
| making an off topic argument: I am referencing an authoritative
| position, not arguing _why_ that position is correct. In that
| sense, yes, I am applying a bludgeon; and I right well should,
| because I can't have a meaningful engagement with your
| scientific position anyways.
|
| I see your sentiment often and even though I agree that usage
| of "the science says" is a poor description of how science
| works, nonetheless language is an evolving construct and "the
| science says ___" is a mainstream construct in English language
| dialogue at this point
|
| There's nothing wrong with appealing to authority. Often times
| it's the best we can do. Sometimes authority is not
| sufficiently convincing and in such situations it's fine to
| point out that whatever "the science" refers to needs more
| evidence supporting their claims
| thegrim33 wrote:
| It's appealing to authority without having to even do the
| absolute bare minimum of mentioning what the authority you're
| appealing to is. Is the authority some person's blogpost? Is
| the authority the FDA? Who knows. "The science" is the
| authority, whoever that might be, which doesn't mean squat.
| helen___keller wrote:
| Yes it's laziness. It's essentially equivalent to hearsay
| without proper citations. However it opens the door to less
| lazy conversation for those who care to ask for sources,
| and most importantly it sets the baseline expectations that
| those sources will be grounded by science and not like, my
| reiki teacher told me kids should wake up after 8 am
|
| There's something to be said by beginning a conversation
| with a shared understanding of what is considered a
| reasonable ground truth.
| sgent wrote:
| It is the science.
|
| Am Acad. of Sleep Medicine Consensus guidelines with 26+
| references: https://jcsm.aasm.org/doi/10.5664/jcsm.6558
| marcusverus wrote:
| IMO, the problem runs deeper than that. Using the same word for
| the natural sciences and the social sciences makes little
| sense. It is a quirk of the language which lends a great deal
| of undeserved credibility to the social sciences. The two are
| in desperate need of a lexical divorce.
| umangsh wrote:
| Belief in "the science" akin to religious faith, is counter to
| the scientific method.
|
| Good science happens when the best scientist is wrong.
| indymike wrote:
| > I'm starting to dislike the phrase "the science"
|
| I dislike it when it is used to describe something that is not
| science.
|
| > I don't have kids, and don't really care when schools start
|
| As a taxpayer, your money is being wasted trying to teach
| sleepy teenagers who are not the right physical state for
| learning. Given that these are future coworkers and the people
| that will be funding the government when you are retired, it
| might be wise to suggest maybe spend monty teaching teens when
| they are awake and physically ready to learn?
| logifail wrote:
| I routinely have to drag our eldest two kids out of bed at 6.25am
| for breakfast in order for them to leave the house in time to
| walk to our local station to catch their 7am train to get them
| into town to walk to school in time for their lessons.
|
| I'm an early riser, so it's not a problem for me.
|
| For them, it's always been a challenge :(
| krumpet wrote:
| What would happen if you just let them get up and get to school
| on their own? They might be late initially, but I bet they
| would figure it out and be on time after a short adjustment
| period.
| khazhoux wrote:
| I think their problem is not actually the part about having
| to drag the kids out of bed, but about the kids needing to be
| up before 6:30a in order to walk->train->walk to school on
| time.
| letwhile wrote:
| Probably they go to bed too late?
| antisthenes wrote:
| As a night owl, this is actually insane. I can't remember the
| last time I woke up earlier than 7AM for _anything_.
|
| Probably ended up being an inch or 2 shorter, due to bad sleep
| cycles during adolescence, which led to many other issues.
| vondur wrote:
| I had zero period in high school (being in band), and we started
| at 6:55 AM.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I get downvoted every time but sometimes I wonder if the school
| bus was invented by General Motors to give people an early
| experience with buses that will make people think riding the bus
| is like putting your hand in a toilet.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| I appreciate your perspective and am immediately reminded how
| miserable and uncomfortable everything about school busses was.
| Very cramped "pleather" seats, often broken windows, no real AC
| or heat, bus driver with questionable background talking to
| herself, bus driver forgetting stops.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| And the kitty litter they put down over the vomit when a kid
| threw up.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| And being a victim of bullying.
| vicehamster wrote:
| Went to high school in Louisiana. School doors opened at 6:40am,
| First bell at 7:20am. Was absolutely brutal. Worked fast food
| until 11pm most school nights. The chronic fatigue was miserable.
| On top of that the majority of my school was on free/reduced
| lunch (myself included). So you end up with an understaffed
| school full of exhausted, hungry teenagers that are still
| expected to give 100% to their schoolwork.
| tesdinger wrote:
| This would be illegal in Germany, where it is legally required
| that there are 11 hours of resting period between work days, or
| work and school. So students and workers can not work later
| than 9pm if they start at 8pm on the next day.
| op00to wrote:
| There were similar laws in my US state 30 years ago when they
| would have applied to me. I was limited in the hours, and
| needed a permit from my school to be employed at all.
|
| Oh wow, it's still a thing:
| https://www.nj.gov/labor/youngworkers/find-a-job/working-
| pap...
| wharvle wrote:
| 7:35 start time here. Worked 4-7 most nights, age 15 on. Only
| saw briefly saw the (low-in-the-sky) sun during a ~30 minute
| gap between those things, 5 days a week, for months on end
| (Winter).
|
| Took me _years_ to get over a kind of situation-induced SAD
| that I 'm pretty sure was caused by that. Like, 15 or so years.
|
| More broadly, how many folks have nightmares about school for
| years into adulthood? Mine didn't stop until my mid-30s--they
| were practically the _only_ nightmares I still had, and were
| frequent. And my experience in high school was relatively good!
|
| High school's... kinda horrible, as practiced. Being cooped up
| in bad lighting during Winter with at least a few total
| assholes you can't escape and the school can't kick out unless
| they get _really_ bad, and add hormones to the mix. Work
| expectations and judgement harsher and far less flexible than
| anything I 've experienced in the "real world". No wonder
| people have nightmares. I'd drop a job with those conditions as
| soon as I could find another, if not sooner.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| I feel like I have been hearing about this research for years,
| yet nothing has changed. Are there any districts which have
| meaningfully pushed back star times?
| mjfl wrote:
| I was overscheduled in high school and constantly sleep deprived
| from doing too much. However, shifting the school day forward 1
| hour or 2 would not have helped me since it would have just
| shifted my whole day forward 1-2 hours, as I was completely
| 'booked' with sports/homework. I think another problem is that a
| lot of people plan for a certain amount of sleep, but then stay
| up late due to devices, which is a new, modern problem that I
| think is actually very severe given the addictiveness of apps.
| Judging other commenters here, I am pessimistic about people's
| ability to self-delude themselves into thinking they or their
| kids don't have a screen problem, and just need the schedule to
| be shifted forward.
| Hippocrates wrote:
| I would have thought school starts before 8:30 because most
| parents have a workday starting at 9. And, starting earlier may
| avoid that rush-hour traffic for the busses or parents dropping
| kids.
| legitster wrote:
| > Why do American high schools generally start so early? One
| large part of the answer: school buses. A lot of school districts
| re-use the same buses to pick up students from different schools:
| first the high schoolers, then the middle schoolers, and finally
| the elementary schoolers.
|
| Not sure what the solution they are suggesting here. Triple the
| number of buses and bus drivers on the road? Let high schoolers
| sleep in so that grade schoolers can stand on dark streets at
| 7:30am? Have grade schoolers stay home until 10:30am stay at
| school until evening?
|
| Also, having been a teenager [citation needed], I have strong
| doubts about the "the science" as presented. Had school started
| two hours later, my natural sleep cycle would probably have...
| also been delayed two hours.
| tesdinger wrote:
| Bicycles, Denser settlement structures instead of urban sprawl,
| stricter gun laws. These factors allow kids to go to school on
| their own in Europe.
| MeImCounting wrote:
| Yes, yes and no. I doubt gun laws have anything to do with
| it.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| In my hometown, all schools started at the same time but where
| I live now, the lower grades start earlier than the upper
| grades. Reuse of the same buses might be part of the reason but
| at least here, the bigger issue is being able to have the same
| bus driver run multiple routes. The district probably could
| afford more buses but every year they have more difficulty in
| finding enough drivers.
| duffyjp wrote:
| This is how it works in my town. My elementary school kids
| start at 7:20, but I checked their future high school and
| they start at 8:15.
|
| Logistically it makes sense-- high school kids can get
| themselves to school even if their parents have already left
| for work. Sucks for little kids though. My five year old has
| to be in bed by 7:00pm and even then waking him up is a
| chore. He sleeps until 8:00 or 8:30 if left undisturbed on
| weekends.
| pavon wrote:
| One option would be to eliminate dedicated high school buses
| and instead ensure that there are sufficient public bus routes
| running at that time to fill the role (with free passes to all
| high school students). That would cut down on the total number
| of buses on the road since you aren't duplicating public and
| school buses, and decrease the number of shifts that the school
| buses have to run.
|
| Another is to have high schools start last so they can watch
| their mid-school age siblings while parents go to work.
| blahedo wrote:
| > ... _sufficient bus routes running_...
|
| * cries in American *
|
| Your entire premise ("duplicating public and school buses")
| assumes a public bus infrastructure in the first place.
| That... is not in general a good assumption for any but the
| largest US cities.
| legitster wrote:
| Urban schools in the US already largely use public transit.
| The issue is the number of rural school districts in the US.
| lp4vn wrote:
| I think most people here nailed it.
|
| School has become a place where children stay so that their
| parents can work. While there is nothing inherently bad about
| trying to solve two problems with only one solution, for the
| specific case of the educational system, conceptualizing schools
| as places for taking care of kids instead of a place for learning
| is very problematic in so many aspects that it's hard to even
| start.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| Changing this would require parents en masse caring about their
| own children's well being more than the convenience of the
| pseudo-daycare services a school provides.
| khazhoux wrote:
| Because if there's one thing parents don't care about, it's
| their children's well being!
|
| (??)
| jellyfishbeaver wrote:
| Suffered through 7:15AM start time all throughout high school...
| no thank you.
| duffyjp wrote:
| I drop my two elementary school kids off before the 7:20 bell
| every morning. We're too close for school bus service, but I
| checked the schedule and the first stops begin before 6:45.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| I think the cynicism about the school system here is not
| warranted. You may face voter pressure in the 20s, but the school
| system does not exist to enable dual-income households. Putting
| aside that they weren't even common when public school first
| became mandatory, this article seems to be largely talking about
| _high school_. High schoolers do not need their parents to be
| home every minute they 're also home, and if this were the case,
| schools would also not be able to let children leave until
| parents were home from work, which is not the case. I don't
| currently have any teenagers, but at least in the 90s when I was
| still in high school myself, it was not uncommon for kids to end
| the day and go home as early as 2 PM. California had and has no
| laws about miniumum babysitting age, but typically 12 was the
| recommendation I always heard, and where US states do have laws,
| the minimum age for a babysitter ranges from 6 to 14. There is no
| US state where you can't leave a high school age child home alone
| for an hour or two.
|
| Whatever the actual reason for the schedule, it is not this, at
| least not as the only or original reason. There are plenty of
| _other_ reasons. It may be difficult or dangerous to practice
| outdoor sports after school in some parts of the country if you
| end the day too late. There 's some housekeeping that needs to be
| done by the school staff after the kids leave, whether that be
| literally cleaning the school or grading homework, and the staff
| probably doesn't want to be doing that super late into the
| evening. It's fairly sensible to intentionally be offset from
| office-induced rush hours, so the day may start earlier than a
| typical workday for that reason. Kids who work after school can
| more easily do so if they get off school before the typical start
| of a late work shift.
|
| I'm not intending to personally endorse any of these as good
| enough reasons to continue the early day, and I will also gladly
| admit that I've been an early bird my entire life so the schedule
| worked out fine for me even as a child. For what it's worth, my
| elementary school actually had two different schedules for
| cohorts called "early birds" and "late birds." The early birds
| started the day at 7 AM and the late birds at 10 AM. This was in
| LA County in the mid 80s. I have no idea how widespread that ever
| was or why my middle school and high school didn't do the same
| thing.
| throwitaway222 wrote:
| Two things that can help anyone here if they actually try them
| instead of whining:
|
| 1) The reason melatonin does not build up in kids anymore is
| because the lights are on, and the screens are on. Those actually
| prevent melatonin build up in the brain.
|
| Turn off the lights in the house, and get the screens dimmed to
| nearly the lowest level.
|
| 2) Wake up early on purpose. Your body will SET your go to bed
| time based on your wake up time. Even if you miss some sleep
| because of it, waking up at 6 (and staying up all day) will
| almost certainly make you wake up at 6 the next day and cause
| your body to get tired when it is supposed to.
|
| But, you're all right, just keep whining about this. Maybe if
| whining keeps wining we'll all have school at 8pm at night
| because people keep shifting things for the next 100 years. But
| don't worry, because education is racist, school will only last
| 15 minutes.
| nytesky wrote:
| For most school systems is because of limitations of available
| buses. They use the same set of buses for hs, ms, elem, and it's
| generally discouraged to have the youngest kids waiting in the
| low light morning.
| johnea wrote:
| The only reason public education has survived in the US is
| because industry needs a tax-payer funded babysitting service for
| their underpaid workers...
|
| So the time of start is really determined by when people need
| their kids out of their hair so they can work, not because it's
| some optimal time for the kids...
| tqi wrote:
| Is anyone here actually familiar with the science? A cursory look
| through links provided in other threads, it seems like the
| recommendation is based on the following facts: teenage sleep
| patterns shift to an avg of 11pm, and teenagers need at 8-10 hrs
| of sleep. Hence, 830am start.
|
| But as others have said, my instinct is that if you gave high
| school me a later start time I would have simply stayed up later.
| My bedtime was almost never dictated by sleepiness, but rather
| things like homework, hanging out on AIM with friends, video
| games, etc.
|
| But surely this is something that has been studied already. Is
| there a correlation between school start time and student bed
| times? Or a statistically significant difference in teenage
| bedtimes between standard and daylight savings time?
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