SHORTER SCHOOL DAYS

SHORTER SCHOOL DAYS

All students have ever complained about in school is the hours. School starts way too early, ends way too late, and happens way too often. Some kids have to wake up before the sun even shines just so they can travel to a place they don’t want to be. All of this makes kids unmotivated. People over the years have researched school hours and how it affects kids minds and work ethic. If starting school later or having shorter hours has already been proven to help, why hasn't anything been done?

Teachers tend to assign hours of homework every night. Many would agree that they usually don’t take in consideration how long this assignment might actually take, and because of this there is now what seems like almost an entire mini project for homework. This is just one class. All teachers do it and expect the assignment the next day. While assigning these they also say you should still get 8 hours of sleep. When you don’t get 8 hours of sleep you are told to go to bed earlier, all while trying to complete the homework. With these two factors, getting homework done and still getting a good amount of sleep where you can still function just becomes a cycle of endless impossibilities.

Most of the adolescents of today suffer from sleep deprivation. According to the National Sleep Foundation, teens are the least likely to get their required amount of sleep to function at a satisfactory level. By the end of high school teens have averaged less than  hours of sleep a night.  This sleep schedule that had been interrupted by school, work , and other activities affects brain development, and the ability to take in important information. Most people think that kids just need to stop complaining, but don’t realize that sleep is the most important in your teen years. A lack of sleep can cause a number of things. Such as emotional and behavioral problems, violence, depression, alcohol use, impaired cognitive function, etc. The list just gets longer. All of these consequences just because nobody wants to shorten the school day.

Although sleep is a huge and major part, it is not the only part. Just cutting off one day from school would save millions for school districts. To keep schools running 5 days a week is such a high cost that really isn’t affordable. This causes budget cuts and that makes for a lower quality learning experience. Shortening the week would also help with activity involvement. Students are encouraged to go out and try new things that will benefit them, but never have the time because school take up most of their time. If hours or days were shorter, kids would put more effort into doing things help them in the long run. Another benefit of a shorter school week is attendance. Since students won’t have to go as often, they will actually come on the days that are required just to get it over with. All of these reasons are just a few of the positives to shorter school weeks. Of course there is  a bunch of cons to go along with these pro’s, but you can’t knock it till you try it.

This is my best 2fer because I really wrote about something that I often think about. This is a decision that I truly stand by. Especially given the fact that I experience some of the negatives of overwhelming homework assignments and not enough time to complete them all.

SOURCES:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/12/high-school-pressure-stud_n_1090158.html

Perle, Elizabeth. "High School Pressure: Why Students Need Shorter Days." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 12 Nov. 2011. Web. 01 May 2017.

https://sleepfoundation.org/sleep-news/backgrounder-later-school-start-times

"Backgrounder: Later School Start Times." National Sleep Foundation. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 May 2017.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-gail-gross/teens-sleep_b_5127547.html

Gross, Dr. Gail. "Sleep for Success: Why Teens Need to Start School Later." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 11 Apr. 2014. Web. 01 May 2017.

https://greengarageblog.org/10-main-pros-and-cons-of-4-day-school-weeks