Is Later School Start Time Appropriate?

 

Do you remember back in high school years, you had to get up at 6 in the morning just to attend the early self-study class on time? To most people, it is certainly painful and pointless to get ready at dawn, ending up falling back to sleep in the classroom. Despite the undeniable regulations set by the school, studies have shown that the length of sleeping hours has a significant impact on both health and learning ability. Thus, to help improve one’s school life quality, schools should start late to ensure the health and academic performance of students.

 

To begin with, concerns about the student’s physical and mental health are one of the main reasons that schools should start later. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), adolescents and young adults (individuals aged between 10 and 24 years old) should have about 8 to 10 hours of sleep per night to stay healthy. Lacking sleep may be the cause of several bodily ailments, including both physical and mental disease. If a person’s sleep is often deprived, he/she may suffer from metabolic dysregulation. This in turn causes weight gain and inactivity, which can lead to obesity. Moreover, lack of sleep could cause cardiovascular morbidity, which are disorders related to the circulatory system, including the heart, blood vessels, and blood. These people have an increased chance of falling victim to illnesses such as heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, and high blood pressure. Last but not least, some of the most common symptoms caused by sleep deprivation include headache, fatigue, and pain, All of which may contribute to negative results, the number of vehicle accidents happening each year is one of the proves. So, by starting school late, students would have been given more time to sleep, thus serving as a means to eliminate or limit the negative effects sleep deprivation has on their bodies.

 

Furthermore, while not having enough sleep affects student’s physical health, it also has a detrimental impact on their academic performance. According to the research (Kelly et al., 2001), long-sleepers have better academic performance than short-sleepers. The aftermath of sleep deprivation may also manifest in the mind, leading to a decline in one's mental health. They take more risks, which means more cases of substance abuse, especially in adolescents and young adults. Driving while feeling fatigued is also a surefire way of getting in a vehicle accident. Lacking sleep also impairs one's capabilities in decision-making. If people do not have enough sleep, they tend to make bad decisions. Sleep deprivation also hits hard on one's attention span and memory. According to Pacheco and Rehman (2023), not sleeping or getting enough sleep can lower your learning abilities by as much as 40%. Moreover, lack of sleep may cause people to develop mental disorders such as depression and anxiety, which is one of the major causes of suicide. As a result, schools should start later for students to have more time to sleep for them to perform well in academics.

 

While some may say that early school start time does not correlate with students not getting enough sleep, several pieces of evidence refute this claim. Students, especially those in Taiwan’s high schools, often get heavy homework which stops them from sleeping when they need to. A study of National Taiwan Normal University. has indicated that 69% of Taiwanese go to bed after midnight, and within that 69%, 35% of them go to bed after 1 A.M. As students in Taiwan may be one of the 69%, we can infer that students who wake up at 6 will not get enough sleep. In contrast, schools in Finland typically start at around 9 to 9: 45 A.M. As schools in Finland start their school time late, students are able to  get enough sleep and get up by themselves, resulting in more happiness in the country(World Happiness Report, 2023) when everyone is in a positive mood. Only by starting classes later can we ensure that students get enough sleep.

 

In conclusion, as researches have proven that positive correlations exist among later school start time, students’ health, and their academic achievement, it is certain that later school time is considered more appropriate. To improve the Taiwanese education system, all schools should consider starting their classes later than 9 o’clock. If the implementation of a later school start time is successful in Taiwan, we could expect adolescents and young adults to have more time to sleep, thus decreasing the possibility of them falling ill to mental and physical disorders, and substantially improving their academic success.

 

References

 

1. Alfonsi, V., Scarpelli, S., D’Atri, A., Stella, G., & De Gennaro, L. (2020, April 9). Later school start time: The impact of sleep on academic performance and health in the adolescent population. MDPI. https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/7/2574

 

2.Kelly, W. E., Kelly, K. E., & Clanton, R. C. (2001). The relationship between sleep length and grade-point average among ... The relationship between sleep length and grade-point average among college students. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/William-Kelly-11/publication/285664611_The_relationship_between_sleep_length_and_grade-point_average_among_college_students/links/566a428208ae62b05f02969a/The-relationship-between-sleep-length-and-grade-point-average-among-college-students.pdf

 

3.Walker, T. (2022, December 1). Later school start times more popular, but what are the drawbacks?. NEA. https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/later-school-start-times-more-popular-what-are-drawbacks 

 

4.Sager, J. (2023, March 16). School hours around the world: Who has the longest or shortest day?. Teach Starter. https://www.teachstarter.com/us/blog/school-schedule-hours-around-the-world/ 

 

5.吳京一 , & 童麗珠. (2006, March). 睡眠你知多少事(3) - 每晚你睡幾小時? 科學教育月刊. https://api.lib.ntnu.edu.tw:8443/server/api/core/bitstreams/c9fa3abf-5432-4b9c-9178-47c558356e6f/content

 

6.Pacheco, D., & Rehman, A. (2023, April 28). Memory & Sleep: How deprivation affects the brain. Sleep Foundation. https://www.sleepfoundation.org/how-sleep-works/memory-and-sleep#:~:text=Not%20sleeping%20or%20getting%20enough,memories%20and%20eliminating%20other%20information.