Almost every day high school students are waking up around six o’clock in the morning to get ready for school, some even earlier than that. Nearly every morning students are waking up without adequate sleep. If sleep is one of the most essential needs of the body in order to grow and develop, shouldn’t we be more aware of how much it affects students everyday performance? The ways in which students are affected by sleep-deprivation is precisely why school needs to start later.
In today's society, most people desire success. They want to attend a respected college, earn exceptional grades, get a wonderful job, and make a lot of money. However, the road to success starts before all of those accomplishments can happen. This journey begins in the classroom. In the classroom, over 25% of all high-school students fall asleep one or more times a week (Mayer-Hohdahl 1). Why does this happen? Schools have sleepy students because of their early start times. "Starting high school early is probably one of the worst things you can do as far as timing the day, as far as adolescents being alert or ready" (Wooley 2). This is a serious problem in high schools all across the nation. Students are tired, and teachers are
Perhaps an underappreciated issue faced by many high school campuses is students sleeping in class, or in more appropriate terms, students not getting enough sleep. “Wake up!” solves the problem for many teachers, but this solution is dated and ineffective. While the students eyes may open, their brains remain functionally inert, and no matter how much a teacher tries to keep their attention, a half-asleep student will never learn as effectively as a fully awake and attentive student. This doesn’t seem like it should even be an issue, after all, the students with this problem just need to manage their sleep more responsibly. Less electronics, earlier bedtimes, and easier course selection all seem to present viable solutions and are often preached as the best ways to deal with the problem. Unfortunately, this is hardly the case.
No activities. Less transportation. The same amount of sleep. These are some of the things that will happen if late start school passes. Late start school would negatively affect athletes because they would not be able to practice since they would not have enough time. Transportation would be affected in a negative way because there would be more money spent on buses. Late start school would affect everyone in a negative way.
Frank Bruni’s article is about how students are sacrificing their sleep to gain a competitive edge over their peers. To accomplish academic success, students pile on AP classes, join extracurricular activities, and even stoop as low to cheating. He really emphasizes the fact that sleep is a prerequisite for healthy growth. He finds, in turn, that the problem in today’s school setting is not how to rouse students, but how to lull them. He believes that teens are overloaded on work and need to take time for themselves, and catch up with what is most important to function- sleep.
At MIT, conversations like this are commonplace. I find it astounding that at one of the finest institutions of higher education in the world, home to some of the most brilliant students I have ever encountered, sleep is regarded as optional. We are a school of science and technology. Here, facts and logic reign supreme. Yet despite the overwhelming evidence pointing toward the necessity of healthy sleep, students are hitting the sack for far less time than is considered healthy for a typical 18-22 year old.
Our study produced numbers less than the recommended amount of sleep. Since this number is lower than recommended, the next step, beyond the scope of the project, is to find the actual true population average mean hours of sleep for all kids at Walton High School. If the data shows that students at Walton High School are being deprived of sleep, we should conduct the same study at other schools and take this to a national level. Sleep is necessary for all humans to survive. Why should teenagers be deprived of one of their essential, inalienable rights,
Everyone knows a movie, where college students are out all night and they are not in their room sleeping. That one movie, where the students come back late and realize they have class at seven in the morning. There are several reasons why students are not getting the recommended hours of sleep; some examples are being out all night, studying the whole night, and being unable to sleep at night. Sleep is essential to live a healthy life; however, college students do not realize the importance of sleep. College students believe they are young and do not need sufficient hours of sleep. Currently, students are reducing their hours of sleep while attending college. Nonetheless, a decline of sleep does have a negative effect on college student’s schoolwork and the ability to focus specifically on their class environment.
It is no surprise that college students aren’t getting enough sleep. We always have something to do. If it isn’t the plethora amount of homework we receive on a weekly basis, then it might be our extracurricular activities keeping us up, and let’s not forget about working! It is known that the average amount sleep a human needs is about 8 hours a day, but as college students, we are lucky to get at least 5! Sleep is important for numerous reasons: It makes us feel rejuvenated, strengths our immune system, puts us in a better mood, and its essential for normal cognitive and motor function. In this observation, I will be discussing the insufficient amount of sleep Rutgers students get while attending school. The lack of sleep is a public health
The latest studies on how sleep is negatively impacting our culture are alarming. From children to adults, we are all suffering. It’s taking a toll on our health, focus, and mental well-being. Humans are designed for sleep but in our high stress, technology induced culture, it is eluding us. It’s especially impacting our smallest and most vulnerable members of our society. As a teacher I see the impacts even on our elementary students. They come to school exhausted and struggle to stay engaged. The problem increases as they get older when the demands of extra-curricular activities, homework, and staying connected through social media keep teens up and connected late into the night. The side effects of no sleep are not pretty and can make even the most well-adjusted human act and behave dysfunctional. In recognizing the
Sleep is an essential fuel in balancing a college student’s performance; being crucial for learning, and physical and mental health. The consistency of a good quantity of sleep (8 to 9 hours) lays great importance beyond many of a college student; yet progressively, sleep deprivation among college students is still at its worse and has not changed in college students since the olden days, when today it is still not healthy. This ultimately factors into a college student’s grade point average ( consequently lowering it), “increased risk of academic failure, compromised learning, impaired mood, and increased risk of motor vehicle accidents”[1] Though, students tend to prioritize their matters in work, homework,
In this article in the Sunday Observer, the author describes the negative effects of sleep deprivation. This ranges from depression, to difficulty to concentrate, and even to suicidal thoughts. They review many statistics from reputable sources. Along with that, they propose solutions to the issue of sleep after explaining how more sleep can lead to better success in school.
Studies show that only eight percent of High school students get enough sleep each night. The other 92% are living with borderline-to-serious sleep deficits that could lead to daytime drowsiness, depression, headaches and poor performance at school. “The natural sleep-wake pattern shifts during adolescence, making earlier bedtime and wake times more difficult. The result for students with early school start-times is a chronic sleep deficit” (Most High School Students Are Sleep Deprived. 1) This shows that the claim, Students shouldn’t have more than two and a half hours of homework a night because if they have more than that it will affect their health. If you have too much homework, it can cause your sleep habits to be different which affects your
Sleep may be one of the most important factors for student success and often one of the most neglected. Many students will sacrifice sleep in order to work, play, or get school projects completed. However, although most people think they can function well when they don‟t get sleep, the
In more recent studies, it has been hypothesized that sleep has a profound effect on learning (Roth, 2008). Information learned in the day is processed and consolidated during sleep at night. It was also discovered that sleep is required for memory construction the following day (Roth, 2008). For these reasons, sleep in a very important for college students. This group of individuals’ main job is to learn new information. Even though sleep is very important for college students, this group of individuals has one of the highest rates of sleep deprivation compared to any other age group (Lund, Reider, Whiting, & Prichard, 2010). Many students have trouble getting an adequate amount of sleep due to their course load, extracurricular activities, work, and social activities (Engle-Friedman & Riela, 2004). Some of these busy students then stay up the night before an assignment is due to