High-School Starting Time Essay Example

He mentions here that students would go “wandering into our first period classes merely to lay our head down on our desks to doze off for the next fifty-five minutes” (496).

The writer uses a lot of evidence to support his argument. He uses research evidence from people that study sleep patterns, and also evidence that adolescents tend to sleep later and wake up later. He talks about how an average high school student’s biological sleep clock is way different from and average adult or child. According to Varley, “tardiness, poor grades, depression, automobile accidents, after-school-on-the-job accidents, and general lethargy have all been identified as the consequences of insufficient sleep among high-school students” (497).

He also talks about how when students wake up before their brain is ready, they won’t be able to function properly, pay attention in class, and they tend to fall asleep throughout their morning classes anyway. He mentions here that students would go “wandering into our first period classes merely to lay our head down on our desks to doze off for the next fifty-five minutes” (496). The author goes on to try to prove that his idea works by referring to a place where it has been successfully implemented.

Varley talks about the Edina School District in eastern Minnesota that pushed back the start of its high schools from 7:30 to 8:30. He talks about how that change did a lot of good for the student body as a whole. He goes further into detail by quoting the superintendent of the Edina Public School District by saying that, “the later schedule has led to better grades, fewer behavioral problems, and a better-rested student

body” (498). He argues even further about how the idea that ‘better-rested students perform better’ is supported by psychologists at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Varley mentions how students usually end up falling asleep through their morning classes due to lack of enough sleep during the night. He also says that “such an early starting time does not benefit the students for whom the educational system is supposedly structured” (497). The author goes on to talk about how our world is becoming more complex and as a result, education is becoming more important. With that said Varley talks about how he thinks that it is vital for the time spent on education to be expended effectively and wisely.

Varley says “it is time to look at school schedules that provide the best education at the best times that are most appropriate for students” (499). The author also goes ahead and quotes James Maas, a psychologist at Cornell University saying that “people are beginning to realize it doesn’t make sense to pay heavy school taxes when the audience you’re teaching is asleep” (499). I don’t really like this essay because he fails to mention the bad side of high school students starting school later. A lot of students in high school usually have an after school job.

If school were to open later, that means students would get out later, end up going to work late and eventually get home even later. They would not have time to do their homework or study for any upcoming quizzes and tests and therefore, result in falling grades. To make matters worse, the new schedule would be against

the students that participate in after school extracurricular activities. In most high schools, practices already currently run until 8 or 9 p. m. with a school day that starts early in the morning.

What happens when we follow Varley’s suggestion of starting the day and an hour later? This would be complete chaos. The author suggests having practice early in the morning before classes start. I believe this would be very unfair to the students participating in extracurricular activities. That means that whoever wants to play sports or join any clubs would have to sacrifice even more sleep to be there on time in the morning. He also mentions that after school activities could start later in the evening after students have had a chance to go home, complete some homework and eaten dinner.

Honestly, I have never heard of a high school that wants to wake up in the morning, go to school throughout the day, leave school to do homework and eat dinner, and then go back to school for an extracurricular activity’s practice session, I know I wouldn’t want to. Another major problem is the availability of buses. This is one concern that school districts discuss when there are talks about changing the school schedules for high school students. The author suggests that the lower grades start school earlier. Varley suggests that other school districts follow in the footsteps of the Edina Public School District.

Apparently that particular district had enough money to buy new buses to accommodate for the problems of the schedule. What the author forgot to mention is that with more buses comes more bus drivers, whom all want and need to

paid, which means more money that the school districts have to get. I know that there should be at least an hour and half between elementary, middle, and high schools opening time. This gives bus drivers enough time to drop off high school students in the morning and go pick up the elementary kids and then middle school students.

By changing the school schedules, it brings up another problem, the parents and family. I know most parents pick up the elementary students from school after they get off work. With the changes, that means parents would have to spend more money than they already do for after school child care. My parents avoided the after school childcare fees because I had older siblings in high school. By the time I got home from school, my older brother and sister were already home, that means I didn’t have to stay in any after school childcare program or be alone at home. The author makes a few fallacies throughout the essay.

He commits the hasty generalization fallacy by basically saying that since his suggestion of opening high schools and hour late worked in a small part of a state, it would work everywhere else. Varley also says that either schools start later or students will be sleepy in class and get bad grades, which is the either/or fallacy. The tu quoque fallacy comes in when the author talks about how if you do not get more sleep, you will not get good grades. Varley tries to appeal to logic by quoting one superintendent about the schedule changes but fails to include any others in his paper.

He instead quotes more

psychologists who talk about sleep patterns and the importance of sleep. He appeals to emotion by stating a realistic scenario that probably a lot of high school students went through by saying, “Ah, sweet memories of high school: waking up at 6:30 in the morning, stumbling into the bathroom to get ready for the day, dressing while still half asleep … listening to our parents tell us that if we just went to bed earlier we wouldn’t be so sleepy in the morning or worse, listening to our parents call us lazy” (496).

He chose this particular statement because many high school students could relate to it. I would call the students whom had the privilege to sleep in until 6:30 am because I had to up, ready, and at the bus stop at 6:15 because I lived 15 minutes away from school and classes started at 7:05 a. m.