Sleeping In

Another article from DN.se: Sleeping In Reduces Accidents.

The headline of the article is a bit misleading since, while the article does mention that a study of middle and high school students in Kentucky showed a decrease in traffic accidents for the kids involved, the main focus of both the study and the article was the fact that starting school one hour later led to more kids getting 8 hours of sleep a night and less tiredness in the classroom.

I remember hearing of a similar study when I was in high school myself, and I also remember that my reaction was the one mentioned in the article: if we're allowed to start school one hour later, then we'll just go to bed later, and nothing will be solved. I probably also was in the group of people that felt that getting up early was character-building for us youngins.

I don't know what to say today about the character-building part. I was a great student and it was difficult to get me to stay home from school even when I was nursing some sort of half-fatal lung infection, or that day I nearly broke my neck playing baseball in the rain in gym class (I had a math test I didn't want to miss!) -- and yet, nowadays I have difficulty dragging my ass out of bed to get to work at 9 am. So THAT much character couldn't have been built by the fact that our school day started at 7:22.

But it is that very fact -- that our school day started at 7:22 -- that makes me extremely skeptical in the face of the conclusion of the article. "Det är högst sannolikt att vi skulle uppnå lika goda effekter i Sverige med en senareläggning av skoldagen. Nu får ju inte svenska 16-åringar köra bil, så effekten här skulle snarare ses i en minskad trötthet och bättre funktionsförmåga i skolan, säger Torbjörn Åkerstedt." Translated: Torbjörn Åkerstedt, a professor in behavioral science, says it's "highly likely" that starting school later in the day would be beneficial to Swedish youths and their education.

The school day at the Swedish high school where I taught for 2 years started at 8:15 am. I don't know how it was at the test school in Kentucky, but my school day in high school started at 7:22 am. That's when the first bell rang, and the butts were supposed to be in those homeroom seats. Depending on what courses you choose to study, some of us started at 6:24 am, although that was voluntary masochism on our part. As far as I know, the 8:15 start is quite normal compared to other high schools in this area, and our 7:22 am start was quite normal for schools in the Twin Cities area.

The point is that it's very possible that most Swedish schools already begin their day one hour later than the schools in the named study. This begs that question -- what is it that makes the later start work better, and does it really translate to a similar improvement in Sweden if Swedish schools already start their days later?

It seems to me that the possible explanations for the improvement are:

1. The benefit is independent of time of day, being instead a result of the relatively later school start.
   
2. The benefit is NOT independent of time of day, but is rather a result of social factors and influences from surrounding society.
   
3. The benefit is not independent of time of day, but is rather a result of biological factors.

So what I mean in case number one is this: it wouldn't matter what time the school day started -- we would see the same increase in the kids' effectiveness and wakefulness and the same decrease in number of car accidents regardless of whether the start of the school day was shifted from 7 am to 8 am or from 8 am to 9 am. But if the number of kids who get 8 hours of sleep goes up from 36% to 50% (the benefit stated in the article) regardless of whether they're starting school at 8 am or 9 am, then obviously the average time at which the kids go to bed is directly correlated with the time they have to get up in the morning. That would seem to suggest that the bedtimes would eventually slide later and later after the change and that the benefits would therefore be only temporary.

What do I mean by the second case then? I mean that the specific time of day IS important -- that is, that you would see more or less benefits at the school that shifted from 7 am to 8 am than at the school that shifted from 8 am to 9 am, and that the underlying reason is social and societal factors such as when adults tend to go to work or when people typically eat dinner. But this is where the fact that the Swedish school day already has a later start than an American school day comes into play. If it is the mere fact that school starts at 8 am that works, then it ought to already be working in Sweden.

The same goes for case 3, in which it is the time of day that matters, but that it is biological rather than surrounding social factors that make it work. My argument on this point is similar to in point 2 -- that the Swedish school day already does start later -- but with the added issue of the vastly different sunrise and sunset times in Sweden. After all, if the benefits of starting school later are based on biological factors that are wholly independent of social calendar norms, then it must be the sun that's behind it all. But if you check out sunrise and sunset times in Kentucky and then compare them to those in Sweden, you'd be forced to conclude that the only thing for it is a school day of 11 am to 2 pm during the Swedish winter in order for there to be any hope of an open eye or two in the classroom. If this is the case, than I CAN actually buy that starting school at 9:30 am in Sweden would give about the same levels of sleep and wakefulness as starting at 8:30 am in Kentucky, without it being a matter merely of changeable habit. But then we're clearly looking at the wrong solution -- instead of starting the school day later, we should be changing the school YEAR. Summers in school, and winters off, would obviously be of more benefit than just shifting the existing school day one hour later.

Wouldn't THAT be popular! ;)