Do our schools start too early in the morning?

It is scientifically well researched: during puberty our inner clock changes – with most people it postpones. Like this, teenagers chronobiologically become owls. Is this change temporary and as yet an unsolved problem it still has grave consequences: according to their biorhythm, adolescents are active ‘til late and would sleep until 8.00 a.m. But, due to early beginning times of school and work sleeping in is not possible. So, instead of sleeping the needed nine hours teenagers sleep far less. The resulting lack of sleep has all known negative effects: weakening of the immune system and therewith of our health, reduction of well-being and performance. Sufficient sleep is also important for the intake, processing and keeping of learning contents. Sleeping experts agree that lack of sleep is a main reason for learning problems of teenagers.

Furthermore, due to the too short sleeping time, the level of melatonin can’t fall completely. As a consequence, the children feel tired and dizzy. Hormonally speaking they really are not completely awake. So far, every teacher can assume that two thirds of his pupils are not paying attention although their eyes are open. All over the world schools tested later beginning times. The picture presents everywhere: starting school only 30 minutes later made the children calmer, more efficient and more willing to work, they were sick less often and skipped school less often. After the tests, also teachers who were skeptical in the beginning agreed with the scientists, chronobiologists and psychologists: an adaption to the biorhythm of adolescents clearly has positive effects on all people concerned.

Now, why do only some schools start later and not all schools nationwide? Besides the force of habit, there are some other hurdles to take: getting up later and later school start naturally means that the kids leave their home later. This makes early working hours of parents a problem. For apprenticeship training companies it has to be possible to adapt their working processes to eventually later beginning times of the teenagers.

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Image source: @SAMINA

This post is also available in / Diesen Beitrag gibt es auch in: German