School Hours Harm Teenage Brains
Starting school before the sun rises is damaging adolescents’ cognition, causing them to perform poorly in terms of academics. Whether their parents put pressure on them or they have goals for a successful future, grades are the most important factor in many teenagers’ lives. Though, learning requires memorization and comprehension – two skills that are weakened by sleep deprivation. Regardless, the American education system fails to consider their students’ best interests and insists on beginning as early as six-thirty in the morning. These policies completely disregard the compromised after-school lives many children fall victim to, whether this is due to their biological makeup or problems within their homes. All things considered, increasing the amount of sleep young people receive would lead to an improvement in grades which would result in a more efficient working class. With that said, beginning classes later in the day would not only boost school districts across the country’s statistics but also benefit the economy in the long run.
Memorizing information is a key factor of education and is extremely dependent on healthy sleep habits. Expecting somebody whose school schedule prevents than from obtaining their recommended hours of sleep to perform appropriately, let alone exceptionally, in terms of memory is extremely unreasonable. This is because, as researched by William DS Killgore and stated in his article Effects of Sleep Deprivation on Cognition, “Sleep following learning is important to facilitate the consolidation and integration of newly learned information into existing memory structures,” and therefore a lack of it, “[…] may impair the acquisition of new memories.” The knowledge that is gained while a person is sleep-deprived will be significantly more difficult for them to retain than it would have been having they arrived properly rested. Chances are, they will be unable to remember their day at school altogether.
The regions of the brain, such as the temporal lobe, that aid in memory processing are harmed by insomnolence. Killgore performed a study where he compared a wide-awake bunch of participants’ to an exhausted group’s ability to recall a series of scenic photographs. His findings proved that “the sleep-deprived group showed significantly less activation of the posterior hippocampus relative to the normally rested group.” If a majority of high school students are dozing off, their minds are not working properly. Many children are incapable of going to bed at suitable times to guarantee they receive their recommended hours of sleep, whether this is due to sports, family issues, anxiety, or other deliberating priorities, therefore they are at an unfair disadvantage. Their grades are not accurate representations of their intelligence if they are not reflecting their full potential.
Staying awake throughout the late hours of the night is beyond the control of teenagers who want nothing more than to succeed in their classes and assure they will live fulfilling futures. Instead, they are biologically prone to it which clashes with the early times most high schools begin. In her journal entry, The challenges of adolescent sleep, Gaby Illingworth describes how living creatures’ circadian pacemakers shift later the more puberty progresses. “The delay is observable at a behavioural level through an individual’s ‘chronotype’, referring to their preferred sleep/wake timing,” she reveals, “Adolescents, with a tendency to sleep late and to wake late, are described as having an ‘evening chronotype.'” When one is equipped with this specific chronotype, the times they choose to stay up until on the weekends are more reflective of the time their body prefers. Oftentimes, this is late into the night. Because this is how their bodies work, expecting them to go to sleep earlier is pointless. Since schools are centered around children, they should form their policies according to how their brains have been proven to function.
In this day and age, the same technology that prevents students from drifting to sleep is becoming essential in order to live a normal life. In the research essay written by a large group of authors titled What’s Keeping Teenagers Up? Prebedtime Behaviors and Actigraphy-Assessed Sleep Over School and Vacation, it is mentioned that “those with access [to technology] in bedrooms use these devices more and have later BT and shorter total sleep time on weekdays,” when compared to children who did not. Many would assume that the simple solution would be to prevent them from texting or watching television completely. Though, because most children are members of social media platforms and various group chats, teenagers without phones are alienated from their peers. It is unethical to force them to choose between their academic and social lives, plus beyond school districts’ authority. These facts considered, starting school later in the morning would give them the leeway to use their phones as late as they are used to, as well as get enough sleep at the same time.
While adolescents would prefer to be good students if given the choice, the unfortunate reality is that many of them belong to unstable families. The stressors occurring in their homes serve as a distraction from homework, plus studying but could also make them even more tired. While those who would be considered highly involved parents would, “motivate their children to higher engagement in their academic,” according to data discovered in a study conducted by Yun Mo and Kusum Singh, people with less attentive parents may be forced to do a lot of cleaning around the house, have to babysit their siblings, or deal with emotional damage after the school day is over. Delaying the beginning of classes by a couple of hours would provide them with the option to stay up as late as they usually have to in order to finish their homework, while simultaneously supplying them with enough time to rest. School districts must consider how their schedules affect every student of theirs and that an early-morning rise may not be beneficial to those who are struggling.
The advantages that come with starting school at later hours in the morning outweigh any negatives that may coincide, which is the reason why so many psychologists recommend this shift. Children are prone to staying up at night for many reasons, from sorting out their family issues to bonding with their peers online, that are out of their school district’s hands. The human brain requires a satisfactory amount of rest to function properly. So many adolescents today are damaging their mental-processing skills in an attempt to abide by schools’ unreasonable wake-up policies. If high schools would like to see a jump in both the grades and performance of their students and in their health, they would step up and make a change for the better.
Bibliography
Harbard, Emily, et al. “What’s Keeping Teenagers up? Prebedtime Behaviors and Actigraphy-Assessed Sleep over School and Vacation.” Journal of Adolescent Health, vol. 58, no. 4, 2016, pp. 426–432., https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2015.12.011.
Killgore, William D.S. “Effects of Sleep Deprivation on Cognition.” Progress in Brain Research, 2010, pp. 105–129., https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-444-53702-7.00007-5.
Mo, Yun, and Kusum Singh. “Parents’ Relationships and Involvement: Effects on Students’ School Engagement and Performance.” RMLE Online, vol. 31, no. 10, 2008, pp. 1–11., https://doi.org/10.1080/19404476.2008.11462053.
Illingworth, G. (2020). The challenges of adolescent sleep. Interface Focus, 10(3), 20190080. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsfs.2019.0080
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Counterintuitive Fall 2022 
Hi! I am really sorry that I got this in so late. I just couldn’t find any sources that would support a causal argument for some reason and I got overwhelmed and just put it off for a while, but I decided to think outside the box and add things I haven’t mentioned in previous essays about this topic before. I understand that I should at least try to come up with something by the due date, though, and I will make sure I try harder to get my Rebuttal in on time this Tuesday. Thank you for any credit you give me for this because I know it was due a long time ago.
I would like feedback on whether or not my paragraphs are too random and stray too far from the point I am trying to make. Is this evidence okay or is it a reach? I was having trouble wording it so it didn’t sound like I was stretching to list reasons.
Thank you so much! Have a nice Thanksgiving!
No need to apologize, AT. I suffer not at all when posts are submitted late. But I do appreciate your penitence. It tells me you care.
I’ll try to restrict my feedback for the time being to evaluating how pertinent your paragraphs and causal claims are to your thesis.
I hope your holiday was blissful.
Starting school before the sun rises is damaging adolescents’ cognition, causing them to perform poorly in terms of academics. Whether their parents put pressure on them, or they have a successful future in their minds, grades are the most important factor in many teenagers’ lives. Though, learning requires memorization and comprehension – two skills that are weakened by sleep deprivation. Regardless, the American education system fails to consider their students’ best interests and insists on beginning as early as six-thirty in the morning. Increasing the amount of sleep young people receive would lead to an improvement in grades which would result in a more efficient working class. With that said, beginning classes later in the day would not only boost school districts across the country’s statistics but also benefit the economy in the long run.
—You’re outlining a Causal Chain here, AT.
—If it’s a preview of your entire essay, that’s a good plan for introducing readers to the signposts they should be looking for along the way.
—If it’s contradictory to your overall outline, it will raise and then dash expectations.
—Here’s how I understand it:
1. Early start times frustrate cognition.
2. Compromised cognition results in poor academic performance.
3. Academic performance is important to students’ parents.
4. Academic performance is crucial to launching a successful career.
5. Reduced cognition interferes with memorization.
6. Reduced cognition interferes with comprehension.
7. American educators ignore the cognitive cost of early start times.
8. Later start times would improve grades.
9. A workforce of high-GPA graduates would be a better workforce.
10. Later start times would improve school district “grades” too.
11. The US economy would improve if school started later in the day.
If that looks like your essay reduced to a few claims, you have a functional introduction.
Memorizing information is a key factor of education and is extremely dependent on healthy sleep habits. Expecting somebody whose school schedule prevents than from obtaining their recommended hours of sleep to perform appropriately, let alone exceptionally, in terms of memory is extremely unreasonable. This is because, as researched by William DS Killgore and stated in his article Effects of Sleep Deprivation on Cognition, “Sleep is important following learning to facilitate the consolidation and integration of newly learned information into existing memory structures,” and therefore a lack of it, “[…] may impair the acquisition of new memories.” The knowledge that is gained while a person is sleep-deprived will be significantly more difficult for them to retain than it would have been had they arrived properly rested. Chances are, they will be unable to remember their day at school altogether.
—That’s valuable, but you have the sequence wrong, AT.
—”Sleep . . . following learning . . . is important . . . to facilitate . . . memory.”
—Killgore says a good night’s sleep AFTER CLASS is needed for the brain to integrate the new material into memory and synthesize it with what has already been stored.
The regions of the brain, such as the temporal lobe, that aid in memory processing are harmed by insomnolence. Killgore performed a study where he compared a wide-awake bunch of participants’ to an exhausted group’s ability to recall a series of scenic photographs. His findings proved that “the sleep-deprived group showed significantly less activation of the posterior hippocampus relative to the normally rested group.” If a majority of high school students are dozing off, their minds are not working properly. Many children are incapable of going to bed at suitable times to guarantee they receive their recommended hours of sleep, whether this is due to sports, family issues, anxiety, or other deliberating priorities, therefore they are at an unfair disadvantage. Their grades are not accurate representations of their intelligence if they are not reflecting their full potential.
—This is a different finding of a different aspect of memory.
—I’m guessing now that Killgore showed some photos and then tested immediate recall.
—In this case, the “sleep-deprived” group slept insufficiently LAST NIGHT; whereas, in the 2nd paragraph, they didn’t sleep well the NIGHT AFTER learning.
—I don’t know if the posterior hippocampus is involved in both; that’s your job.
—It’s also your job to provide us with a tiny bit of background so we WILL know if the PH is involved in both.
Teenagers are biologically prone to stay awake throughout the late hours of the night, not to mention, littered with endless external distractions. Because of this, there are no possible methods of ensuring they will fall asleep at a time that is beneficial to their health. As long as children have activities to participate in or personal manners to tend to, the limited amount of time they possess succeeding the school day will permanently be occupied. They can not be expected to rid everything that brings them joy all in favor of public education.
—Teenagers are littered?
—Too fast.
—You offer no basis for the primary claim that teens are BIOLOGICALLY PRONE to stay awake until morning.
—As soon as you introduce the notion that “nothing can be done” to change their behavior, you reinforce the objection that teens permitted to sleep later into the morning will simply “time shift” their late bedtimes even later.
—This is not the essay to address what you seem to feel is a rebuttal argument that “if kids are too busy to sleep, we should deprive them of their extracurriculars.”
—Readers who don’t feel that way feel attacked and get defensive.
On the topic of personal manners, the unfortunate reality is that many children are members of unstable families. The stressors occurring in their homes may not only serve as a distraction from homework and studying but could also make them even more tired. While those who would be considered highly involved parents would, “motivate their children to higher engagement in their academic,” according to data discovered in a study conducted by Yun Mo and Kusum Singh, people with less attentive parents may be forced to do a lot of cleaning around the house, have to babysit their siblings, or deal with emotional damage after the school day is over. Delaying the beginning of classes by a couple of hours would provide them with the option to stay up as late as they usually have to in order to finish their homework, while simultaneously supplying them with enough time to rest. School districts must consider how their schedules function for every student of theirs and that an early-morning rise may not be beneficial to those who are struggling.
—Your Introduction did not prepare us for this sociological angle at all, so it comes as a complete surprise.
—It’s going to take us a long time to get from “kids have unstable home lives” to “therefore, we should start school later.”
—You need to soften the ground for this one.
—You haven’t cast teens as victims yet. You might need to. In fact, it’s an excellent gambit. They’re not stubborn. They don’t WANT to squander their sleep time on late-night video gaming or sexting. Their BIOLOGY dictates their circadian rhythms. Their HOME LIVES frustrate their attempts to be good students. Diabolical social media engineers have ADDICTED THEM to cultivating their online personae.
—You’ll have to make these foundational claims much earlier than “just in time” as you have here.
In this day and age, the same technology that prevents students from drifting to sleep is becoming essential in order to live a normal life. In the research essay written by a large group of authors titled What’s Keeping Teenagers Up? Prebedtime Behaviors and Actigraphy-Assessed Sleep Over School and Vacation, it is mentioned that “those with access [to technology] in bedrooms use these devices more and have later BT and shorter total sleep time on weekdays,” when compared to children who did not. Many would assume that the simple solution would be to prevent them from texting or watching television completely. Though, because most children are members of social media platforms and various group chats, teenagers without phones are alienated from their peers. It is unethical to force them to choose between their academic and social lives, plus beyond school districts’ authority. These facts considered, starting school later in the morning would give them the leeway to use their phones as late as they are used to, as well as get enough sleep at the same time.
—Unless you prepare the soil for this one, it will be a hard sell.
—Their INATE PSYCHOLOGY makes social standing feel like life or death.
—The technology of the “all-purpose phone” has blurred the distinction between social life, academic life, civic life.
—Taking away the device to prevent one sort of behavior deprives the phoneless of all the other benefits the phone provides.
The advantages that come with starting school at later hours in the morning outweigh any negatives that may coincide, which is the reason why so many psychologists recommend this shift. Children are prone to staying up at night for many reasons, from sorting out their family issues to bonding with their peers online, that are out of their school district’s hands. The human brain requires a satisfactory amount of rest to function properly. So many adolescents today are damaging their mental-processing skills in an attempt to abide by schools’ unreasonable wake-up policies. If high schools would like to see a jump in not only the grades and performance of their students but also in their health, they would step up and make a change for the better.
—You clearly understand how a Conclusion should be built, AT, but, if you accept my other advice, you’ll want to use yours to recall all the ways teens are victimized by their biology, by their well-meaning parents, by their oblivious school districts, and by the heartless commercial interests that prey on them to devote more and more of their precious sleep time to online activities.
Nice work overall, AT. You have a sure hand and a clear grasp of how to marshal evidence. (You’ll need more as I’ve indicated above.)
Provisionally graded. This post will always be eligible for a Regrade following significant Revision.