The Damages of American Schools

          Thick windowless walls, a strict schedule telling you when to eat, move and socialize, stress persists as a rampant disease and depression is ingrained into the very bricks of the building. This hellish description might bring thoughts of a prison, probably somewhere no one would want to spend hours of their day. Yet, this is only describing the day of an average student caught in the cupidinous American public school. The description may be appaling, but it is not dramatic. Education in America has not seen a drastic change since the development of the public school system during the industrial revolution. Children of our modern society choke down fragments of knowledge in an environment built on teaching them just enough to become diligent factory workers. Such an environment is becoming obsolete as students steer further and further away from an industrialized career. Schools today are founded on principles set in place by greedy economists of a far past. These vary principles make powerful people turn up their noses to the idea of change. 

So what are the flaws of the system? 

         Firstly, schools have a nasty habit of starting unbearably early. This however, is not just an inconvenience for many teens and their academic performance, but it can also risk their health and safety. Lack of sleep is a problem for academics, alongside an increased risk of diabetes, obesity and cancer. This drowsiness also takes a toll on a teen’s mental health, such as growing cases of depression, anxiety and suicide. These dangers can also be more direct, such as accidents caused by tired teen drivers.

       This begs the question, “why do schools start so early?” Some people believe that starting early can leave more time after school for clubs and activities. However school administrators often forget about the shift in a teens internal clock. Unlike children in elementary schools teenagers internal clock shifts after puberty. The shift causes teens to go to bed later and, consequently, wake later in the morning. Due to this, teens often go to bed at 11. If school starts the next morning at 7 and the child needs time to get ready, he or she must wake up only 6 hours later at 5 in the morning. In fact the average amount of sleep for a high school student to get in a night is merely 7 to 7 ¼ hours. It is pretty clear that this is nowhere near the recommended 9 to 10 hours. 

          This horrendous sleep deprivation can be detrimental to the students' academics. Curious about how bad these sleepy teens may be performing, David Creswell, Professor in Psychology and Neuroscience at the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences, led a team of researchers to discover the true relationship between sleep and GPA. "Animal studies have shown how critical sleep is for learning and memory," said Creswell. "Here we show how this work translates to humans. The less nightly sleep a first-year college student gets at the beginning of the school term predicts lower GPA at the end of the term, some five to nine weeks later. Lack of sleep may be hurting students' ability to learn in their college classrooms." At the end of the study the researchers were able to see a large difference in GPA from those with more sleep compared to those with less. After the results of the study, Creswell concluded, “Our work here suggests that there are potentially real costs to reducing your nightly sleep on your ability to learn and achieve in college. There's real value in budgeting for the importance of nightly sleep." 

          Yet, it's not all in the academics, we know that teens are not getting enough sleep, but how does that affect their health? A report from 2014, the American Academy of Pediatrics described the problem of tired teens as a public health epidemic. In addition, it has been known by scientists for years that this lack of sleep can also lead to many other physical health issues: dementia, type 2 diabetes, obesity and even cancer. 

         This being said, the problems don’t stop when it comes to a students physical health, it is also problematically impactful on a person's mental wellbeing. In a study published by the National Library of Medicine, researchers sampled the anxiety levels of a collection of students up to the age of 16. Of the children from the sample, anxiety disorders affect as much as 10%. Similarly, an experiment comparing the anxiety levels of a highschool and a psych ward, revealed the stress experienced by students attending a modern highschool was, in fact, greater than that experienced by the patients of a 1950s psychological hospital. That is not even taking into account the millions of students that suffer with depression and suicidal thoughts. Such metal troubles plague approximately 16% percent of children ages 12-16, which is about 2.7 million people.

          This perpetual drowsiness is also a factor in the more direct driving safety of our country's youth. In the U.S. a teen is able to get their license at the age of 16, and in effect, they often take on the responsibility of driving themselves to school. However, those students are driving quite early, often right after waking up; and on occasion, in the dark. When a driver is tired they are unable to best react to the other people on the road. Drowsy driving is a hidden killer, and often described to be just as bad as driving drunk. These sleepy drivers are prime victims of, likely fatal, accidents. The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety estimates that each year drowsy driving causes at least 328,000 motor vehicle accidents. Of such, at least 6,400, take lives. Most of these accidents are reported before 6 a.m.. It is also reported that drivers between the ages of 16 and 24 are 80% more likely to get into a crash as a result of their lack of sleep.  

          So, why start the day so early when the cons so heavily outweigh the pros? The answer isn’t that simple, but one thing is clear, for the safety and health of all our students, these unreasonably early start times must come to an end.