Gee, this is old news at Liberty Harbor Academy: Teens Do Better When School Starts Later. - Granite Grok

Gee, this is old news at Liberty Harbor Academy: Teens Do Better When School Starts Later.

I’ve known about this for quite some time – teens developing brains are naturally off-cycle time-wise from the rest of us.  I remember, back when, when it was quite easy to sleep late – like all morning long on a weekend or holiday if nothing was scheduled.  So when the President and Dean of Liberty Harbor Dr. Julianne Cooper, was on GrokTALK! two weeks ago to talk about education in general, she mentioned that Liberty Harbor starts at 9am because of this specific reason:

The Science of Sleepy Teenagers

“Making teens start school in the morning is ‘cruel,’ brain doctor claims.” So declared a British newspaper headline in 2007 after a talk I gave at an academic conference. One disbelieving reader responded: “This man sounds brain-dead.”

That was a typical reaction to work I was reporting at the time on teenage sleep patterns and their effect on performance at school. Six years on, there is growing acceptance that the structure of the academic day needs to take account of adolescent sleep patterns. The latest school to adopt a later start time is the UCL Academy in London; others are considering following suit.

So what are the facts about teenage slumber, and how should society adjust to these needs?

The biology of human sleep timing, like that of other mammals, changes as we age. This has been shown in many studies. As puberty begins, bedtimes and waking times get later. This trend continues until 19.5 years in women and 21 in men. Then it reverses. At 55 we wake at about the time we woke prior to puberty. On average this is two hours earlier than adolescents. This means that for a teenager, a 7 a.m. alarm call is the equivalent of a 5 a.m. start for people in their 50s.  Precisely why this is so is unclear, but the shifts correlate with hormonal changes at puberty and the decline in those hormones as we age.

Like I said, Liberty Harbor is already ahead of the game on this.  If you have high school aged child and are looking for a school that teaches the traditional values of a Classical Western Liberal (as opposed a “liberal” in the current political sense) education, give’em a call.

Not only will your kids get a great education, but you won’t have to fight to get your kids out of bed (er, or as much).  Mebbe you’ll get to sleep in a bit more too (heh!)

(H/T: Slate via Instapundit)

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